NERVous Breakdown
by Tabac Iberez
Summary: With the Second Impact stilled in the cradle, Earth would be in better in shape were it not for the ravages of the Aliens. As SEELE lie in wait, the Commander must act as the world's faith in his organization of XCOM is called to absorb the aborted NERV project and stand ready to defend Earth again with weapons and tools more foreign than any Alien Artifact: the EVA units.
1. Inferno

Snips and Snaps: NERVous Breakdown. XCOM/AaT(NGE)

(A/N: The first time I watched Neon Genesis Evolution, I flipped my shit. A lot. I have a fairly high bullshit tolerance I like to think, but my tolerance only goes so far. So when I found Advice and Trust, it redeemed the series to me in a big way. Strypgia's work thus gets a nod in the crossover title because it pulled the pants off of the anime's head, and I pull directly from that alter-cannon when it kicks in.)

"So long as the stars are in the sky, trust in our watch." A young man said, watching his older commander carefully. "Translated into the Latin, ' _Dum sidera caeli confidunt in vigilia_ ' so that the men can still holler their battle cries."

The Commander smiled, and shook his head. "I hope battle cries are a non-issue, Badford. They deserve a rest and a pension now. So do we, come to think of it. One alien invasion is enough for a lifetime, thank you."

Laughing, Bradford just rolled his shoulders and patted his old station in the command center fondly. "They'll never shut us down all the way. They might re-socialize the ground pounders, get Shen to up and retire, return us back to our home bases, but God forbid they try and extinguish the charter."

"You're not talking about the incident in Brussels?" The Commander asked, rolling his eyes to high heaven. "I really, really hope you're not talking about the incident in Brussels. I only want to shoot out a Muton's eye with a plasma pistol once in my life, thank you very much."

Bradford laughed now. "No, I was thinking of prying Vahlen out of her lab."

Both men chuckled, and the Commander pulled open his chair's secret alcohol slot and two tumblers. Pouring the near-black whiskey, he handed one glass to Bradford. "Cheers, my friend. To the best things in life- a peaceful day, an interesting night, and a fine house off Subic Bay!"

Three Years Later

Looking at the TV screen, Bradford winced audibly. The area displayed was ruined, trashed beyond all belief. One end of the battlefield had held a monsterus, alien machine capable of wrecking untold destruction at the drop of a hat.

On the other end was an Angel.

"Rewind the tape." Bradford asked the Operative slowly. "I'm thinking someone thought we went to sleep."

The Operative laughed, and brought his right hand to the center of his sweater, right over the Seal. There was only one Seal, as far as he was concerned, and one Motto.

" _Vigilo Confiedo_ , Sir."

Subic Bay, Sunset.

Inside the rather well-appointed cabana, a man snored in his chair, safe in knowing that he had done his duty. In the kitchen, his housekeeper worked on putting together a simple dinner, while her boss took the traditional siesta before going back to the closest thing to work he ever did anymore- organizing the local musical program down in the ex-American high school. It relaxed him, and helped keep the old meddler busy in his retirement.

As the housekeeper finished up on the rich gumbo the man liked, a phone went off. Going over to pick it up, she noticed something. This wasn't the house's old-fashioned rotary phone that the man loved to sit next to and talk with his old friends from the war on, discussing sports and science and the misadventures of their former brood. No, this phone was different. Black, with a gold-checkered inlay, the old athsteitcs of the bakelite corded phone combined with new technology, and a seal on the back. Picking it up, she answered cheerfully.

"Hola, Casa del musica principal de escuela de George Dewey. Quien es?"

On the other end of the phone, a great mumbling and juttering occurred, with several cries of "Ok, who speaks Spanish?" "Ow, my nose!" and "Why isn't Bradford doing this himself?!" before a calm-ish voice got on the line.

"Hola. Me llamo est… Lieutenant Sabre… yo nessicta habla con Commander."

The housekeeper screwed up her face and frowned. That man sounded distinctly like an American. The man who owned the house normally used Spanish- he was certainly more fluent in it than she in English- but she did know a bit.

"Yes, Lieutenant Savre, we have no…no commander here. Only music teacher."

Again, there was a muffled roaring and confusion by the other end of the line. Finally, a different young man answered the line. He, at least, spoke Spanish well enough to communicate. Aparently, they needed to speak to the owner of the house as soon as possible. Sighing dramatically, the housekeeper went to get the owner, only to realize he was already there. As he took the phone, the housekeeper watched him listen carefully, the years slowly falling of his face. He might have come here to rest and relax, but he also grew older and calmed down.

When the phone call was done, the Commander rolled his shoulders and sighed.

"Consuela," he said in his soft, round Spanish, "Pack my bags please, and make up a box dinner. I'm afraid I've been returned to duty."

Nodding, the housekeeper went off. The Commander had long ago left a list of instructions in case he got reactivated, and it was time to get to work. As she watched the man leave in the odd plane that came down in the back yard, she sighed faintly. There was no rest for good men in this world, and her happy musician was unfortunate proof.

Inside the Skyranger, the Commander looked at the videoconference screen in front of him. This was a familiar feeling, harking back to the beginning of the Long War.

"Hello, Commander." The slightly-digitalized voice said, tone neutral as always. "In light of the newest extraterretial incursion, this council of nations has reactivated the XCOM project. You have been chosen again to lead Humanity's first, last, and only line of defense. As before, your actions have a truly massive weight for the future of this planet. The council of nations was impressed and has resoundly applauded your actions in the Long War, and has as such elected you to serve as our sword and shield again."

The teleconference shifted now, to an unfamiliar logo of another organization- NERVE?

"Because of the unusual and extremely potent nature of the enemy, an outside group has been brought into the XCOM project for the duration of the emergency- NERV, a group that has made great leaps into the related fields of these aliens. Given the EXALT incidents, you will be in complete control of all operational assets, with the NERV units directly integrated into the existing chain of command."

Finishing, the man from the Council looked up.

"Good luck, Commander." 


	2. The Lost and The Damned

NERVous Breakdown 2: Electric Boogalloo

Looking out over the approaching Angel, the Commander frowned slightly. The new base, called the Geoscape by NERV, lacked all the comforts of home or even XCOM SEA base. No reasonably comfy chairs, no copies of the Seal everywhere, no bustling piles of orderlies, no coffee…

"So, our one giant fighting robot with a pilot is down, yes?" The Commander asked the sub-commander of what was formerly NERVE, now his direct Chief of Discovery. The title for Dr. Kozo Fuytsuki was more ornamental than anything- he still served as a general-purpose right hand man for all matters of Angelic bullshitery and what the NERVE guys could do. Gendo Ikari, the original boss of the Geoscape, had been moved over into the project to mass-produce the EVA units. Until Bradford could get brought up to speed, the good Doctor was stuck providing running commentary on the operations.

"That would be correct, sir. We still have Unit Oh-One, but Ayanami is currently recovering from combat."

Muttering to himself, the Commander tried to look through his options. Conventional warheads had proved useless attacking the first Angel, the one prototype robot and pilot were still out of commission from the second Angel, and the "reserve pilot" that was in what little of Gendo's files they had managed to "aquire" in the handover was still en route.

The choice was unpalpable, but the Commander made it anyway. "Sorte the Ares flight, full plasma load. Flight orders are to preform carousel rounds while Paladin flight charge their Fusion Lances. We're only going to get one good shot at this- we need to land one decisive strike."

To his forward right in the command center, the TACO nodded and started talking to XCOM SEA where the Firestorm flights were based. "ETA one minute thirty for Ares, two even for Paladin sir. Quote from Paladin Actual, 'you want fries with this?' end quote."

The Commander grinned. "Thank you, Tactical Air Controller. Tell the guys that the recovery teams are on standby and promise to only use the pink fire foam."

"Awfuly confident of your men, Commander." The doctor said, tilting his head. "Nothing short of an EVA or multiple dozens of nukes has ever destroyed an Angel."

"Well, say hello to multiple dozen nukes worth of ordy, then." A new man said as he entered the command center. "Field Commander Nyugen reporting, sir- the ground compliment has the particle cannons set up and ready to roll, and Vahlen's Special is emplaced."

"Vahlen's Special?" The Commander asked acerbicly, raising an eyebrow.

"Big, angry maser that has an accelerator coil on the nose and a plasma-pulse element on the rear. It uses bipity-bopity-boo physics to work like a particle accelerator, except it takes up about a fifth of the energy of a particle accelerator that size because of some shady math and a huge diamond. Before you ask more questions, remember I never graduated high school."

Shaking his head, the Commander sighed. "And what are the odds of us punching through with all our combined firepower before and after we start lancing that bastard?"

"Bad. Before lance strikes, three in ten odds given a good salvo. After lance strikes and during, four in ten."

Nodding, The Commander looked at Kozo flatly. "Your people better have that pilot inbound hot and fast. It's going to be hell until he gets going.

On the ground, things were bad. The regular troops had been hitting the Angel with all that they had in their arsenal, but the attacks did nothing. Each shot bouncing off the damnable force field, counterbattery fire lancing back to destroy men and machine with brutal precision.

Amidst the chaos three hundred yards back, the XCOM soldiers worked at a breakneck pace to set up the field generators and power lines that would feed their mighty particle cannons. Each one weighed as much as ten men, their apertures smoking lightly from the force they emitted with nothing less than an iota of their full power. Waiting, the crews listened for the order to begin the bombardment and unleash their fury. Each crew had experience, either serving as anti-air in the Long War swatting down follow up bombers or a siege troops to dig EXALT out of their hundreds and thousands of hiding holes.

When the order came, they fired as one, each blue shaft of light striking like a thunderbolt- more so, as the mere thunderbolt had no force, only electricity. Each cannon accelerated less than a breath's worth of helium and water to speeds best measured at speeds best measured at large fractions of c, and then let that beam of destruction loose on a target.

As the brilliant beams struck home, the Angel was almost pushed back, each one hitting home on its defensive fields. For a brief moment, as the glow of the Chernekov radiation faded away, the Angel stood still.

That short moment ended when the Angel counterattacked, throwing a lance of light and rage into a particle cannon nest, destroying the gun and crew in an instant. Swearing and cursing, the remainder resumed fire until the Vahlen's Special let rip.

Where her little siblings could crack stone and shatter reinforced concrete, Valhen's Special had originally been designed to build new bases- which meant punching a four hundred foot long shaft down into bedrock. This titanic power, one that had been built to rend the earth asunder, fired now, blinding anyone looking with bare eyes as Openhiemer's Light flew out in a deathly blue glow. As the Angel pressed back, focusing on resisting the titanic force that was striking it like the fist of an angry God, it could not return fire.

Then the Firestorms came in. Plasma shot riddled the thing mercilessly, pasting itself across the energy that protected the beast with, while the follow-up Fusion Lance strikes opened up the glory of the sun near it. Fire burned it, radiation cooked it, and debris cut its field. Yet, it still held on to life, taking one step at a time to move closer to the Geoscape. One step, two steps. It had one purpose- get to the doors, and cleave it's way through. To risk returning fire was to risk letting a shot through, and it could not allow that damage to harm it. In as much as it could think, the Angel had a plan. Get to the hatch. Get to the hatch, and wait. With its death, perhaps the destruction of the obstacle would let the next angel through. It itself did not need to succeed, but rather pave the way so that the next would be able to go further.

"Losses so far?" The Commander asked, face impassive.

"One particle cannon, one power station. Nine dead, forty casualties." The TAGO said, face thin. "Power grid's got one hour left of life left in it before we start need to field-meld in additional lines and nodes. Six guns are starting to experience overheating, and that thing keeps moving."

"Noted. Kuzo, you know this building's computer network best- how soon until our replacement pilot gets here?"

A few clicks later, and on a secondary monitor a picture of Shinji and Misato appeared, the boy nervously flicking through a document. Across the room, the mood of the XCOM operatives dropped like a stone. That was a kid in there. Stepping up to Kuzo, the snarling ex-operative that happened to be second only to the Commander himself on the ground almost went for his sidearm.

"Care to explain why in the hell you've got a kid in the car, Doctor?" Nyugen hissed, looking for all the world to see like a readied cobra. "Never knew you slobs needed a child to do a pilots job."

"Field Commander Nyugen, stand down." The Commander said quietly, watching his subordinate. "I'll handle this soon enough."

Even with the warning, the angry Laotian wouldn't back down until the Commander stood up.

"I need to see our new EVA pilot. Dr. Kuzo, I'm afraid you'll need to accompany me to get there. Hilltopper, you're in command while I'm away."

The mention of his nickname brought Nyugen out of his bullish rage, and brought him up short. "Aye, Sir. I have the command."


	3. The Circle of Innocents

NERVous Breakdown 3: Light-Bringer

Travelling down to the EVA bay, the Commander looked over at his compatriots. War might have made strange bedfellows, but the people that he had been just put in charge of looked like jackals for the most part. They were proud, had something to prove. Whether to rage against the dying of the light or welcome the end with more than a whisper, it still irked him. This attitude was dangerous, something he had tried to pound out of his men at every opportunity. It would take some time to do here, and it needed doing. This desire to achieve was good in a limited sense; too much would bring down an empire.

On arrival at the EVA bay, things progressed rapidly. The poor boy- Shinji Ikari, son of the _former_ commanding officer here- was dressed in the piloting suit, sweating bullets as he looked up into the rafters where his war machine was waiting. The Commander frowned, and ran his hand through his hair. War was his oldest companion, and yet looking at the boy who was the only one who could wield the avatar of power before him, he sighed. This would haunt him, he knew. Too many things did- Mexico City, the Newfoundland Expedition, the EXALT base in Berne, his ex-wife- but this? This would stain his soul.

"Son." he said, solemnly looking at Shinji. "I'm not comfortable with this. I'm a soldier, not some mad scientist or demon gaijin from a comic or manga. But I will be honest with you- my men have died today. More still are wounded. I need help to keep them alive- your help. Your machine's help."

Shinji nodded, stiff. The poor boy moved like a doll, held by sticks and strings.

"I'm not going to lie- this will be painful. War always is. That said though, your job is going to be simple. All you need to do is get up there, and your suit's AT field will cancel out the Angel's. When that happens, all you need to do is hit the deck as our overwhelming firepower rips it to shreds. Worst case, it hits you once or twice. Ok, son?"

Shinji nodded again. Lips tight, the Commander growled a simple order.

"Say if you accept or not, son. A mutter isn't your word any more than a handshake a contact. I've never marched a drafted soldier into hell, and I'll die before I start."

Shinji nodded, and swallowed nervously. "I will do it. I will pilot the EVA."

The Commander nodded, and patted the boy on the shoulder. "Then welcome to XCOM. I'm sorry you joined this way, but we will never regret you. Follow the directions of the launch crew, and once you're there keep your radio on. We'll do everything we can to help you, so just stand strong."

For the last time that day, Shinji nodded and tried to salute. "Y-y-yes, Sir."

Shaking his head, The Commander returned the salute crisply. It was the least he could do.

As the EVA prepared to be launched to the surface, Shinji tried to pull himself together. He had to stand up- that was all he had to do. Stand, and hold his ground. Just stand there, and take a hit. He'd done that before- just let the strike come in, and land on him. It would hurt- the blows always did. Really, when didn't things hurt? His Uncle's words, his classmates' stares, his father's abandonment, they all hurt.

Really, what was one more blow?

As the rack touched the sky and put him on the Earth, Shinji tried to maneuver, his inexpert hands skittering across the controls in the bath of LCL he was suspended in. Stumbling and slipping, Shinji advanced on the Angel, trying to bring himself to bear.

"This is TAGO to EVA-01, come in EVA-01, over."

Come in? What did that mean?

"Ah, Shinji? That's your name, right? I'm the TAGO- I'm gonna make sure you don't step on one of our guys, ok? Say yes if you here me."

This, this Shinji could understand. He was here to help, not hurt! "Yes, this is Shinji, I hear you."

"Great!" the TAGO said, a smile in his voice. "Listen, you see the Angel off there, slightly to your left?"

"Yeah?"

"Walk towards it, ok? There's apparently a weapon delivery system in some fake buildings for you, and between you and it is an… ok, a Progressive Spear. I'm gonna trigger the building, you grab the spear, and if the Angel notices you then hold the pigsticker in front of you and we'll nail it once it hits your AT field. Or you can stick it- ohshit."

As the TAGO swore quietly, the Angel turned to face Shinji and screamed. Pumping it's legs, it charged him like a freight train. Shinji barely had enough time to turn slightly when it hit him, their AT fields entangling and canceling each other out. Trying to focus, the boy-pilot tried to bring his fist up, but the whip of the Angel swatted it out of the way while the other went for the EVA's head.

"Shinji, DUCK!" the TAGO yelled, and Shinji followed the order gracelessly as the blow sent him back. As the drilling cannon named after the lead researcher of XCOM fired, the Angel tried to project an AT field. Underneath its gaze, Shinji growled and pushed back, fighting against the AT field that the Angel was trying to project. As the highly-weakened AT field appeared away from the EVA and Angel, though, the heavy artillery swatted it aside like a fly. The angel had exited its realm, and was now thoroughly at the gunner's mercy. Heavy spikes of blue light pierced it, the gunners tearing strips from their foe. All the while, Shinji just had to hold on.

Then the Angel toppled and fell right on the EVA.

Looking out from the headquarters area, the Commander held his head and sighed. Pinned under the corpse of the Angel, Shinji was waggling his limbs and trying to push up against the ground to get out, occasionally flailing. Picking up the horn, the Commander keyed his address all option.

"All XCOM troops, good work today."

Another short toggle on the Big Board, and the Commander made sure his chuckle was done before the next thing he had to say. "Shinji, good work there. Stay put, ok? We've got recovery vehicles inbound to haul the Angel carcass off, and they'll help you stand up. Are you doing ok?"

Shinji thought for a moment, and rubbed the back of his head. That fall had hurt, and the Angel was none too comfortable a blanket. "I think I'm fine, sir."

"Alright, son. Just hold tight- we'll be there."


	4. The Ruined Slope 'twixt Battering Wind

NERVous Breakdown 4: I think I'm getting better at this!

Looking out over the rosters of NERV staff that had been absorbed into the new XCOM base, The Commander sighed and looked down at the lowly Captain in front of him.

"So, Captain Misato, I've read your forms, and I'd like to talk to you about the request to move Ensign Ikari to a surface apartment with you. I'll warn you, I'm tempted to dismiss this out of hand- having our pilots in unsecured quarters seems like an accident waiting for a place to happen, and I can't agree with him attending high school here very well either. Response time saves lives, and he's the only thing we've got aside from a very dubious prototype and pilot I have no biometrics on to stop another Angel attack."

Nodding stiffly, Misato replied. This new commander might have been a hard-ass in the office, but he'd managed to get Shinji in the EVA yesterday without bulling him over to do it.

"Well, sir," she began, putting her thoughts in order for this hat-trick of diplomacy "The first thing I'd like to mention is that a solid home environment has been a constant in the NERV program to develop our pilots before now. If you've looked at the files for the Second Child-"

A single raised eyebrow met this. "Excuse me?" the Commander politely asked. "Second Child? I'm afraid we don't have one of those on our files."

"Asuka Soryu, the other proven EVA pilot? She's currently stationed in NERV Berlin, pilots EVA unit 0-2, currently age fourteen, flaming red hair?"

Putting his head in his hand, the Commander made an assenting noise. "Ok, duly noted. Gonna have to bring her here at some point and upgrade the EVA, which means either an airlift or asking the Ruskies if we can use the Trans-Siberian, which means…" the Commander said, muttering off as he started scrawling on a memo pad in Dari.

Clearing her throat, Miato continued. "As I was saying, a fairly stable household environment has reliably proven to help keep the EVA pilots stable and increase their proficiency at using their weapons systems."

Looking up, the Commander muttered a few words of gibberish, briefly shook his head, and went back to Japanese. "Apoligies, ma'am; a gift of languages can bite you in the back easily. As I meant to say, I'm not against Ensign Ikari living with you as a guardian, per say. What concerns me is the location- your apartment is too far away, and we need to be able to sorte an EVA unit within five minutes of positive confirmed contact. Even with maximum parallel work, your cage crews need the pilot mounted in the machine to do several parts of the launch procedure and the current maximum speed to get from your current apartment to the launch pad is seven minutes."

Weighing her options, Misato flipped through the property listings in her head. As much as she liked her apartment, this was what most textbooks (as written by lance corporals) called an opportunity.

"A compromise, then." She said cautiously. "There happens to be several empty apartment buildings in the area- if I could move into one, then would that help?"

Nodding, the Commander smiled. "I do believe that can help. Seeing as you're on my payroll now, I'll call up some of the bluehats to pull the move off."

"What?"

"Bluehats- in more polite terms, rookie aspirants. They serve as general tech staff and our skilled labor pool. Your address is in the system, so I'll have Bradford call you with the new address. On a more serious note, though, I have a question."

Misato shrugged, happy her biggest concern was handled. "Yes, Commander?"

"As you accidentally pointed out with your remarks on the Second Child, I have no idea what NERV has, who they have, and where they've got it all stashed. I've got my adjunct working on it double time, but with as much materiel I've got to handle I need him to do his real job and not dig through records. So, I want you to have a new job instead of trying to be a one-person battle leader. I need a second adjunct, one who's specialized in handling all these new, shiny, poison-covered toys my boys are slavering over."

Thinking about it, Misato tried to find a way to refuse. On one hand, if she formally acquiesced to joining XCOM instead of getting subsumed in the merge then she'd be in a tricky spot to dig through NERV. On the other, though, it would offer her a very strong wall at her back: something told her that an intruder to the camaraderie and spirit of this odd organization would be unwelcome at best and encounter an accident at worst.

Considering how much she knew about Second Impact, and more importantly what stopped Second Impact from turning the global climate into a horrendous mess, Misato was willing to take the chance.

"Deal." She said, shaking the Commander's hand.

Down below in a spare medical alcove, Shinji tried to get himself up, looking into the unfamiliar ceiling like it held the answers to Life, the Universe, and Everything.

"Morning, sleepyhead." A joking voice came from next to him, and Shinji's head slowly came to bear. His first thought was that the person talking to him had to be some sort of guard- who else wore body armor and left a rifle leaning on the wall?

"What time is it?" Shinji asked the stranger, slowly sitting up.

"Quarter to ten, buddy. You've been out like a light all day."

"Oh. My apologies."

The guard laughed, and stuck out his hand. "Not a problem, kid. You got a name, other than Giant Robot Driver?"

Nodding, the afformentioned Giant Robot Driver replied. "Shinji Ikari."

The guard just chuckled, and stuck out a hand. "Lance Corpral Jay Vessening, at your service. Quite literally- I'm your current adjunct."

"Excuse me, but I don't know what that means." Shinji said, backpedaling instinctively.

"I'm your go-to guy, translator, driver, paper pusher, and general flunky at large. More importantly, my job is to stick to you like glue so that way you don't get lost."

"Oh." Was all Shinji could squeak out. Vessening just chuckled.

"Relax, Ensign. Just think of me as the little fairy that reminds you to tie your shoes in the morning and sign your pay stubs. Which reminds me, we need to get you over to Payroll and Logistics today so that you get payed and get your uniforms."

"I get payed? And get uniforms? I'm sorry, but that doesn't make sense!"

Vessening just put his head in his hands and sighed. "Ok, let me start from the top. When you said 'yes' to playing slap-n-tickle with Godzilla in a religious paintjob, you joined XCOM, full stop. Right?"

"Yes…"

"Well, as an organization, XCOM has a responsibility to make sure you can do your job- read, go stick your neck on the line and keep the bigass shields down- so as such they give you money so you can eat and a little card so that you can get through doors. I've been told it's easier than expecting officers to know how doorknobs work, but eh. They also give you clothes so you look snazzy and don't run around naked or anything, plus an apartment. That said, I'm pretty sure you're moving in with someone- Ensigns, even giant robot ensigns, don't get their own apartments."

Realing for a grasp on anything resembling logic in the exposition he heard, Shinji just muttered an ok.

"Good to hear you're up to speed, m'boy!" Vessening said smiling, ignoring the confusion present. "Now, let's get to work!"


	5. Frozen Rains

NERVous Breakdown 6: Holy shit this is getting written fast

Looking around the Quartermaster's Store, Shinji gulped loudly. It wasn't all his fault- seeing literally thousands of IKEA-brand shelving units with milk crates full of everything from power packs to uniforms to a few that looked like they had grenades in them.

"Sir, please stop ogling the motion sensors." Vessening sighed, gently steering his underaged charge towards a fitting room with a frowning quartermaster there with a cloth tape to take his measurements. "Those aren't grenades, and quite frankly you can't requisition them after the shower incidents back at Benzia."

Shinji failed to respond meaningfully as he was briskly measured and outfitted, until he was forced to catch one of the heavy uniform coats that he'd wear until he could get a full set of duty clothes.

"Well, try the thing on, make sure it fits." The quartermaster grumped, before getting out a large caddy of patches. "Hey, Vessening, you think they're going to qual that Angel-thing as a big, bigger, or biggest fish?"

"Definitely biggest fish. Don't forget to add on Superheavy Mechanized and Superheavy Weapons operator patches."

"Seriously? This kid's going to have more field strips than he has chest!"

Vessening laughed, which made Shinji blush. "Nah, you'll get some room back. Seeing as he's an Operator-Only, he doesn't need a Rifle Qual or Infantry Qual patches. Don't think he'll need any of the quals except Pistol, really."

"Stop shitting me. You think they're going to let this much of an asset go with only pistol quals?"

"He's an Ensign." Vessening replied archly. "With an aid-de-camp."

"Oh."

"And to make matters worse, I have some forms signed by Central himself that specifically outline the kid's schedule at the _Offizirsschule_. Kid's getting a fast track, make no mistake."

"Excuse me?" Shinji asked planatively from underneath the double-breasted uniform coat "How do I put this on?"

Holding his head in his hands, Vessening just breathed in and out before helping his hapeless boss.

Sitting in his office, Central Officer Bradley was having a very bad day. Between having to parse Japanese footnotes on a number of "critical personal" files also written in very formal kanji, officialese-laden phone calls from his staff to the tune of "how the fuck did NERV not implode in a pile of antilogic" and a note from the Commander that said "gib EVA driver good shite b4 angstsplosion" he was kind of stressed.

Then the desk phone started ringing. The desk phone was very specific- it meant one of three departments was calling. One, the Combined Base Management Services, was bad.

Two, Combined Interceptor Command, was worse.

"Bradford, we've got a situation." The Commander said as Central picked up the phone. "You know the prototype that was out of action last fight? Yeah, well, when the pilot got out of the hospital she came to us for checkup. Since she wasn't on file, the doc on duty did a physical too, and she walked out about eight hours ago. Problem was, the bloodwork just came in."

"And I have to find her." Bradford groused.

"She, quite literally, has more anti-psychotics and suppressive drugs in her system than a captured Berserker. She is also exactly half of our current defense lynchpin. I need her tracked down, booked into a lab, and getting checked to see if someone either screwed the pooch on her meds, is getting doped to the gills for some reason, legit needs that much medication, whatever. This is currently the biggest item on our plate next to designing the Block One upgrades to the EVAs, and more importantly also falls right up your ally."

"Sir, you realize this is going to slow everything else down, right? I can't-"

The Commander growled a little. "Bradford, you know and I know the only reason you're pouring through personal files is because we're still translating and sorting the damn things. I want you, half a squad in MP gear, and a full platoon in full battle rattle to find this 'Rei Ayanami' and get her into an XCOM medical facility ASAP."

Bradford grimaced. This was bad- the only time when a half squad of MPs backed by legit infantry was normally needed when a Master Gunns had gone off the deep end and gone on a serious bender off-base. The last one had resulted in calling a Skyranger to pick the guy up from a dive in Cairo.

Bradford _still_ didn't know how he'd managed to party his way there from a bar in the Gold Coast in less than seventy-two hours.

"Well… shit…" Bradford said eloquently.

"Yeah, my thoughts exactly. You want a doctrine?"

"Shoot, boss."

"You can probably talk her in there easily enough, so go slow and normal. Appeal to reason- the doctor notes she as somewhere between catatonic and robotic. Might want to bring a SHIV wrangler to help on the MP team. The local computer network is still giving us more shit than Microsoft 8, so I can't get you much info."

"Alright, then." Bradford said, standing up and grabbing his coat. "Gimme ten minutes and we'll be at it."

"Shoot me the designation code for your techie and I'll drop updates to him. Anything else?"

"Nope."

"Good. Call me back when you get her in a lab so I can send down her minder. Adios."

"Auf wiedershein"

Walking to her apartment home from school, Rei had a lot of thoughts on her mind. Between the chaos and confusion at the base, plus some of her injuries, she was feeling concerned. Commander Ikari was gone, Doctor Ritsuko had given her twice as much medicine "in case you can't make your next refill date" and there had been so many people flooding the normally empty halls and yelling in foreign languages…

Not good signs. Not good signs at all.

"Madre de dios, tan favelas son que aqui…"

"No! El es no menor los Sectoids en favelas. Rio de Janiero es todo scheisse."

Stopping, Rei listened to the conversation in bad Spanish. She didn't understand it, mind, but she could theoretically pick up some hints from their body language and tone.

"Excuse me, Miss Ayanami?"

Of course, that was presuming she had enough time to focus and separate the vagaries of the language from the underlying intent. It appeared she did not.

"Yes?" Rei said, turning to face the speaker. Slightly tanned, he wasn't terribly imposing until she noticed the holster on his hip and what looked like a shoulder rig in his jacket.

"If I might introduce myself?"

"Of course."

"I would be Central Officer Bradford, and when you came in earlier today for your post-release checkup there were significant disparities with your biochemistry and medical records. We'd like you to come in for some… double checking so that we have a good medical file."

Rei almost squinted, now definitely confused. "Could you not talk to Doctor Ritsuko?"

Bradford sighed, and rubbed his head. "No, we haven't found her yet. Things are still a little bit of a mess after the command swaps, I'm afraid."

"Oh."

"Yes, that seems to be the order of the day. So, can you come with us?"

"Alright."

Back at the Geofront, the Commander was trying to think happy thoughts. Thoughts about cats, and small children, and girls young enough to be his daughters running around in cat ears and plenty of clothing frolicking through the daisies, and young women that were _certainly_ above the age of consent frolicking another meadow over wearing _significantly_ less but still with cat ears.

Unfortunately, the person sitting between his Chief Researcher and his Chief Engineer was in no way a happy thought. She could be considered rather monstrous, as a matter of fact, considering the circumstances of her birth.

"So, let me get this straight." The Commander said quietly, holding his head in his hands. "Back in Linz, before the war you two got up to a, quote, 'biomechanical experiment' unquote."

"Yes." Vahlen and Shen said in eerie synchronization.

"Nine months _after_ said experiment, you placed the 'second phase' of the experiment in a series of legal dodges keeping her on university grounds for the next eight years."

"Yes."

"After which you managed to get said experiment into the Alpha Site."

"Yes."

"Where the experiment resided for the duration of the Long War."

"Yes."

The Commander breathed in, and then breathed out.

"After this, you brought said experiment here."

"Yes."

"I have one question."

"Yes?"

At this point, The Commander took all his frustration, sheathed his knife hand, and got ready to start yelling.

"HOW IN THE NAME OF ALL THAT IS HOLY DID YOU TWO HAVE A DAUGHTER, IN MY BASE, FOR THE ENTIRE ALIEN INVASION? WE HAVE SOLDIERS FROM EVERY COUNTRY ON THIS GLOBE WORTH THE NAME, WE HAVE THE FINEST TECHNITIONS IN THE WORLD, AND TOP TIER SECURITY. HOW? WHY? MORE IMPORTANTLY, WHAT IS SHE DOING STILL ON MY BASE, STILL GETTING INTO PLACES I DO NOT WANT A CHILD, STILL DRINKING- AND DON'T THINK I DIDN'T NOTICE THE DRINKING- AT THE CANTINA, AND STILL SLEEPING IN A MELD TANK? I AM TRYING TO SAVE THE WORLD AGAIN HERE, AND WHOOP! MERRY CHRISTMAS, YOU BRING ME A DAUGHTER. HUZZAH. I DON'T EVEN HAVE TECHNICAL AUTHORITY OVER HER BECAUSE SHE'S NOT A MEMBER OF MY ORGANIZATION."

As Vahlen and Shen took a step back, The Commander stopped to take a breath.

"After the shit I've been handling this week, you have delivered the straw that broke the poor camel's back. You have five minutes before I throw in the hat for today and start relaxing, so please convince me not to wake up tomorrow and put out want ads for a few new chiefs.

Vahlen started, face very pale. She hadn't seen the Commander this stressed since… oh, just before Brussels.

"To begin, Lily here was part of a sanctioned experiment in artificial wombs and non-traditional human reproduction. For her entire time at the University of Linz, she was properly watched, raised, and treated. More importantly, we have documentation to that effect."

Now it was Shen's turn to narrate. "We were working together as partners in a robotics competition, which is how I got brought into it. I designed the mechanical parts, the tissue harness, and provided half the genetic material for Lilly. I also hold the title of her legal guardian. She originally moved into XCOM Echo because of the terror bombing at Linz. I was panicking, and I had a friend in the Skyranger pilots. She came to Alpha Site shortly after."

"Once we got her home, certain logistical difficulties became apparent." Vahlen said listlessly. "For starters, food and sleeping. We tried several different solutions, but eventually Colonel Mackay decided to help us and he lodged her in a spare bedroom near the Officer School. The secret slowly dripped out from there. It was about six months after she arrived that she started eating in the mess, and another three before she got a spot in the barracks. She kept herself very well handled, acted responsibly, and attended most of the lectures at the officer's school."

The Commander just rubbed his eyebrow and went into his desk for the tequila. After pulling out a bottle of sake, he just sighed and got a glass.

"You wanna share?" the teenage girl in front of him asked, smiling. "Haven't had sake yet."

Raising an eyebrow, the Commander shook his head "no."

"Please? C'mon, after all the MELD those two gave me that was 'unrecoverable' because it already had been attuned, I got a good, solid, regenerating liver and six kidneys worth of filtration."

Coughing, Vahlen put her hand on Lily's shoulder. "She's referring to her Loki's Organ. Once we allocate MELD to a soldier, we need to run it through someone with a Loki's Organ to de-attunate it. Most of the Meld used in just about everything we use it for isn't permanently consumed, it's just keyed to that one thing until we run it through Lilly or one of our… six? Six other techs with the Loki's organ."

"And it makes me stupid tough." Lily added, chortling. "Until Mom pulls it out, it serves as a backup system for all my everythings."

Looking at Lily, the Commander thought for a moment. A looooong moment. It might have been the sake talking, but he had An Idea.

"Uh-oh…" Lily said. "I know that look. Mom, Dad, this isn't going to be like the time I tried sneaking into the armory, right?"

At this point, the Commander chuckled. When most people chuckle, it was a sign of happiness.

When The Commander chuckled, it was a sign that doom was neigh.

"Lily Shen." The Commander said, pulling out a class and a very small pile of paperwork. "How would you like to learn more about those very big robots we've got in those launch hangers?"

As the girl's eyes lit up, The Commander poured her some sake.

"All you need to do is sign there, and you'll be part of XCOM. Officer school, fast track, the works. Only catch is you have to help us make those big 'bots fight harder."

Lily's signature was on the paperwork before any of the rest could blink.

"Shen. Vahlen." The Commander said, smiling still. "This is the best option I have, aside from throwing you all out in the cold. Care to finish the bargin?"

Reluctantly, both signed as well.

"Good! Lily, I'll be making sure to introduce you to the rest of your peers later. Until then, why don't you pick up your kit with Mom and Dad?"

As the three exited the office, the Commander waited until the door was closed and slumped in his chair.

"Dear God, I hope this is the last time I need to do that." He panted, the energy flowing out. "At least she's not fighting. At least she's not fighting."

As he called a near-forgotten deity, another stone was added to his soul.


	6. A Joust Without Lances

NERvous Breayonkdown 6: The Real VI

Flopping down in his bed, Shinji panted quietly. He had been run to the bone by dozens of appointments, hurried hither and thither and yond by Vessening and a small herd of other enlisted that made him feel powerless. A whole week of getting pushed to the edge of exhaustion from doctor's apointments, unusual classes and lessons, and the mother of all weapons tests. Hell, he didn't know why carrying a sidearm all the time was so critical, but the pistol exams and three-hour long chunks of time spent slamming out iron-jacketed tungsten rods into a paper target had left his arms and shoulders dead as a doornail.

Outside the door to Shinji's room in the oddly large apartment Misato had, Vessening sighed quietly and resisted the urge to draw out a coffin nail and test out his bronchial filters. He had been putting the boy through his paces, yes, but the kid had so much to learn, to know, to do. Frowning to himself, the tired Lance Corporal thought about what he had learned from his good friends at Echo Site and their interactions with the so-called "Second Child" and the truly epic clusterfuck going on there.

As a communicator started beedling on his belt, Vessening pulled on his headset and called in.

"Hello?"

A loud warbling sound, much like a plasma rifle warming up combined with the sounds of a Cyberdisc getting discus-chucked by a very sneaky MEC trooper solidified itself into a stream of half-drunk patois that crammed together German, Spanish, English, and Russian while retaining the aggravating irregularities of all of them spewed out the phone.

Vessening promptly went slack as his world tried to end itself.

"You're kidding."

Now the patois shifted into overdrive, sheer rage sobering the speaker as he clearly explained using four languages of profanity that yes, XCOM Echo was getting ready to transfer over EVA-02 to the NERV main site and almost every Interceptor on the planet was getting transferred to XCOM Delta Site in the Philippines ASAP because they were moving something called an "Item of Intrest" to the Geofront soon.

"Thanks, Mac. I'll get you a few beers next time I'm in Linz."

The patois resumed drunkness, and slowly petered out as the call ended. Sweating bullets, Vessening quietly pocketed his communicator and opened the door to look at the sleeping Shinji. Tiptoeing like only an experienced prankster could, he slipped in and started crossing out items on Shinji's schedule for the next week. The kid could afford to slow down now that it was apparent he didn't need to play a stiff game of hurry up and wait.

Down in the pits of the Geofront, near the border of Terminal Dogma, a very large group of people were doing something very stupid.

"Ok boys, we're going to be working overtime to get this shit set up!" Lily called out, signaling some of the party forward. "We need the Doric columns up by the entrance, the bigass fire center left, and the pipe of MELD on center right! Pew teams, make sure they are straight, parralell to each other, and are at right angles to the altar! Throne goes in the door before the Altar, so Altar group, DON'T GO IN FIRST AGAIN! Choir stands are on the right, put the organ on the left! And whatever you do, make sure-"

"That Mom doesn't find out?" Vahlen said, tapping her foot at the back of the line with one eyebrow into her slowly graying hairline.

"fuck." Went Lily, looking around for some cover.

"Too late- you're due in the medical center Romeo in five minutes so we can get those EVA pilots shot up with their MELD. After that, I'm giving you to Captain Suan-Hwei so he can let you formally run your quals. After that…"

"oh Commander no help me."

"You get to do something very special." Vahlen said, smiling a dangerous smile. "Taxes."

Before anyone knew it, Lily was gone, making her way to an elevator trying to get away from the sheer insanity that was the German tax code. Vahlen remained, just chuckling as she walked to her own way back to the surface. Little did her daughter realize that XCOM soldiers didn't actually pay taxes due to some very impressive trickery on the Commander's part.

 _Oh, that really was a_ _lovely_ _night in Brussels…_ she thought, before getting ready to spin up the Modular Gene Lab they'd built for this. The plan was simple- Shiji and Rei were both scheduled to get a fairly simple set of modifications consisting of Secondary Hearts and Adaptive Bone Marrow. If everything was going according to plan in Europe, the Second Child would be getting the same. The only major bug here would be in the decanting- if Shinji and Rei were decanted wrong, then they might go into shock. Vahlen might not have been a medical doctor by trade, but she had picked up a lot of experience in patient care and trauma medicine back during the bad days, when the doctors weren't and every scrap of funding was dumped straight into beans and bullets and fresh bodies.

"So, you're the new scientist then." An unfamiliar voice said from across the elevator, turning to be a woman in a labcoat vaguely similar to Vahlen's.

"That would be correct. Doctor Marie Vahlen, Head Reasercher of XCOM. And you would be?"

"Doctor Ritsuko Akagi, Computer Director of NERV."

Vahlen smiled for a moment, before making a snap decision.

"Tell me, Doctor Akagi, have you ever seen someone with two hearts?"

"No."

"Would you like to?"

Half an hour later, Dr. Akagi was holding onto a trash can queasily, watching the masterful hands of an XCOM surgeon stitch up Rei's chest as on the other table Shinji got his ribs carefully replaced.

"I apologize about the smell!" Vahlen called out cheerfully through her microphone headset from inside the operating room. "I assure you, normally you don't smell the formaldehyde! More importantly, this operation? Complete success! I never expected two people to have such similar MELD atunation unless they were related!"

In the viewing room, Lily sighed and put her head in her hands, the sweatpants and bra she wore not at all concealing the ports in the small of her back connecting to her Loki's organ. Picking up the viewing box mike, she grumbled halfheartedly at her mother.

"Mom, what do you use to sanitize my ports? The same ports that are not five feet away from Doctor Upchuck?"

As the nurses sniggered, Vahlen hit her head with the palm of her off hand. "Oh."

"Yeah. Sorry 'bout that, Doc. Most of the time I have to hang around to give out another dose. Second hearts are expensive."

As Ritsuko tried to hold it all in, she waved her hand in what she hoped was a friendly manner. Lily just snorted, and stood up to pull on a shirt and leave. As she departed, Vahlen walked in.

"So, now that you know what I do for a living, let me ask you: what is this LCL?"

 _lub dub thrub._

 _lub dub thrub_

 _lub dub thrub_

As six hearts beat in time across three bodies, a rather aggrieved Commander tried to get things working in his office. Papers everywhere, phone missing, computer smashed…

"Damn, that was good sake…" he muttered, picking up a loose pile of paper that was dripping alcohol and dumping it into his wastebin. Sure, office drinking probably wasn't the best move, but in his defense he'd had to put a stop to three Chapels of Commanderism last night. Stopping people from trying to make you a god via large applications of prayer, MELD, and psionics was worthy of a _little_ drinking.

As the ever-reliable corded phone screwed into his desk started ringing, the Commander dived on it, nearly skewering himself on a chunk of glass.

"Commander's office. Himself speaking."

"Commander, can you come down to the EVA bays? I've got a Block point-five upgrade mapped out, and the demo version installed on Unit oh-naught." Shen's calm resolve said, bypassing the words of the trusted engineer.

"Sure! Just let me call up the janitor staff to unscrew my office."

Hanging up, the Commander pulled out his spare phone and activated it so that he could stay into contact with the rest of the base and booked it down to the EVA chambers. New weapons were one of those fun things that always put a pep in his step and a cheer in his heart.

Arriving in the EVA bay, the Commander grumbled quietly as the elevator opened up to a wall of off-duty soldiers who wanted to see the equipment in question get to work. Grumbling slightly, he tapped the shoulder of a Warden-armored soldier, and raised an eyebrow.

"EVERYBODY, MAKE A FUCKING HOLE! COMMANDER'S HERE!"

"Thank you." The Commander said, passing through the narrow partition in the ranks. Looking at the utter mass of equipment dangling off of EVA-00, he smiled. This, this was good. Once he got up to the control platform (because none of the XCOM techs liked the Brenbow Box and it was chock-full of important crap that had the operators that were still NERV for all intents and purposes) he pulled on a headset and looked over at Shen.

"So, what we got?" the Commander asked, looking at the giant Alice vest the mech was wearing.

"Well, first things first," Shen said, "we revamped the power system. Dual power plug ports in case the umbilical gets jammed, built-in backup converter to suit voltage, AC/DC converter for the external batteries, the works. Next up, external Elerium battery packs. Running just off the external battery net, we managed to cram in a twenty-minute window of full combat power, plus the five-minute internal buffer. If the EVA goes into stasis, we're looking at a ninety-six hour recovery window before other mechanisms in the life support system start to go haywire. The full Block One updates are going to include a new internal battery system, advanced servomotors, reinforced framing, and actual internal armor worth a damn."

"I take it there's nowhere to go but up?" The Commander quipped, looking into the mass of electronics that was the EVA.

"These things are practically organic, and they've got abilities and components that we quite frankly have no fucking idea how they work. The LCL system makes no sense, but everything we've found about it lists it as crtical, and most of my boys swear the thing practically breathes in standby mode. Good news is, though, we've almost finished the upgrade harness for Unit oh-one an Unit oh-two's is getting laid out in Bravo Site right now."

"WEA-PONS WEA-PONS WEA-PONS WEA-PONS" the crowd behind them shouted. Rolling his eyes, the Commander made a "quiet down" gesture and looked over to Shen. "Shall we give them a show?"

"Sure thing, boss. Projector teams, fire up the big screen! Armory trucks, get the ordy pallets to Tower Three! Unit oh-naught bridge team, ready to get this show started?"

" _We're ready to go, and the Pilot is in the control plug. Can you send the Commander up to the Holoscape_?"

Sighing quietly, the Commander tried to grin. "No rest for the wicked, Shen."

"Indeed, Sir."

Sitting inside the Entry Plug of Unit 00, Rei breathed in and out, listening to her new heartbeat.

 _lub-dub-thrub._

 _lub-dub-thrub_

 _lub-dub-thrub_

In a way, it was oddly soothing even though it was vastly different than what she had spent the last five years listening to.

"Unit zero-zero, this is TAGO. Range is hot, over."

Pulling in a deep breath of the LCL, Rei nodded before speaking. "Unit zero-zero to Tago, range is hot, ready to begin weapons test. Over."

"Very good. Start us off with the Plasma Pistol."

Rei nodded, and pulled out the "pistol" that bore a passing resemblance to a toy. Fliking her thumb both in person and on the machine, she took the safety off and took a bearing on the large sheet-metal target she was to aim for.

"Firing" she said, and pulled the trigger. In one smooth motion, a head of plasma formed in the barrel, and burst forth with a thin contrail behind it. As it splashed into the target, a hole was burned clean through- about… three meters wide, if Rei's guess was right.

"Good shot, zero-zero. Next up's the gauss carbine. Remember to ride the recoil carefully- we don't want a tungsten slug landing in Beijing."

This time, when Rei nodded the Evangilion followed suit. Holstering the plasma pistol, she instead drew the Gauss Carbine. Again, three layers of safeties disengaged, the weapon powering up. Drawing it on another target, she pulled the trigger for three slugs to fly out.

Unfortunately, the Gauss Carbine was not a standard EVA rifle, and kicked like an electronic mule. The first shot landed on the target, while the second clipped the top and the third was a clean miss that put a crater on the mountainous backstop.

"Whelp." Went the TAGO, scrolling through his checklist. "Looks like Hilltopper wins the pool. Anyway, next weapon- the Minvosky Cannon. Zero-zero, I know this might sound bad, but don't miss this shot, ok? The Minvosky Cannon is a lot more energetic than the carbine."

Trading the weapons over, Rei shrugged and brought her newest, most dangerous weapon on target. The Minvosky Cannon, a combination of Fusion Lance and particle accelerator, had been originally been a fever-dream weapon of a lab assistant's to serve as anti-battleship ack-ack. The science behind it was sound, though, if too big to load on a Firestorm and too expensive to employ en masse.

As the Minvosky Cannon came to bear in Rei's arms, she felt the vibrations from its unstable core in the motion of the LCL in the control plug. This weapon… this weapon was powerful. Bringing it up to bear, she sited it in on the target, breathing in and out. This could not miss.

When her fingers depressed the firing studs and the EVA pulled the trigger, her world went white. A fusion core had been opened straight down the raceway designed to send a sitting drop of water so fast that the oxygen and hydrogen were sheered apart. Now, with hydrogen plasma and free electrons entering, they left in a viscous rage. One atom now hit with the force of a hundred, and a hundred as a hundred thousand. The air was immolated, saturated by the rage of the weapon for an instant, and then the thunder roared, clapped, and roared again. What had been six feet of reinforced concrete as a target twenty feet wide and tall was now a ghost of a memory, a shadow burned into what part of the hill remained. Scattered physical remains were everywhere, the atomized and ruined parts and particles softly floating down like volcanic ash while a small wildfire burned.

Inside the Geofront, not a jaw was up. Recovering his senses first, the Commander made spoken what everyone else was thinking.

"Well, fuck. We built a good gun."

Moments later, Vahlen came up to the deck and tapped on the Commander's shoulder.

"Commander? We may want to do a study on the area, see what we can see as to side effects of the Minvosky cannon. Also, that forest fire."

"Yes, forest fire." The Commander said, shaking his head. "Listen, science. Do science, do science good. I'm going to find Shen and… uh… discuss doctrine. Yeah. Doctrine."

Vahlen put her head in her hands. "So you two are going to the bar and bask in the free drinks for building the biggest gun, then?"

"Doctrine with input from the senior enlisted? Excellent idea, Marie! You can come along when you're done!"

Shaking her head, Doctor Vahlen just sighed. "Alright, I'll think about it, Commander. Have fun."

With a sigh, the Chief Researcher headed down from the Geoscape to go give her staff the rest of the day off. Like hell anything would get done, just like all the other times she'd help build the last Biggest Bestest Gun-ish Gun.

 _Next time,_ Vahlen though, _I'll just let them see the scale model version so their poor brains don't melt again. Boys…_


	7. A Savage Frustration and Mire

NERVous Breakdown 7: Big Luck Candy Mountain

Sighing quietly, Misato started back to her apartment. It had been a nice, calm day. Wake up, breakfast, sort personal files, go to lunch, forward important files to Bradford, field a call on a particularly muckled file that had something wrong happen to it, download another batch of files for tomorrow, go home.

"Stupid no-good _arsenlichers_ throwing me out of my stinking meld tank like a bunch of damned exortionists…"

In front of the door to her apartment, Misato noticed a slim girl in a uniform jacket muttering angrily and kicking an empty coffee can. Before she could approach, her phone gave a little beedle-leedle-leedle and the good Captain picked up.

"Hello?"

"Ah, Captain Katsuragi, it's Central Officer Bradford. Listen, we've run into a little snag with one of our younger members, and we were wondering if she could bunk with you for a while."

Misato blinked, and thought for a moment. "Ah, why me? Sir?"

"Because she's been sleeping in a meld tank and the scientists are getting kind of titschy about someone living in their labs. Also, you have one minor, are scheduled for another, and we finally got NERV Berlin to fork over the Third Child whatchamacallit and her giant-ass war machine."

"Oh."

"Yes, quite. On the plus side, Lily's part of the EVA cage crews as an equipment troubleshooter and weapons designer, so I can't possibly see how this could go wrong."

"But what about-"

"Two single children plus puberty under one roof? Yeah, ask Lily about it sometime. Her mother had as interesting idea of sex ed, ok? She's not going to try anything with Shinji, and if he tries anything with her then we'll need to make him a replacement set of nuts."

"Ok then."

"That reminds me- we're upping your living stipend too. Good luck!"

As the phone clicked off, Misato shrugged and opened up her apartment.

"Hey… you Captain Katsuragi?" Lily called, hopping off where she'd been crouching on her laundry bag.

"Yes?"

"Good! That means this is my new ruck, then!"

As she let the teenager pass her inside, Misato just dropped her briefcase and went to the fridge for a beer. This was going to be one of those days…

Why was there a giant diagram covering the table?

"Hey… uh, ma'am?"

Oh, that was Lily, and her giant pile of drafting tools sitting down at the table. Ok, nothing serious. Thinking about it for a minute, Misato smiled and ruffled the girl's short black hair. "You can call me Misato when you're here. Hell, Shinji does."

"Oh, cool. Anyway, I think I scared the other guy here when I was looking for a room. Poor sot needs to get a speaker instead of earphones, or he'll never hear someone coming."

"How bad?"

"Erm… pretty bad. Anyway, I'm gonna set my room up now." Lily said, disapeering. Misato just sighed, until she saw Shinji trying to sneak out with his cello to practice. Shaking her head, she just let him go. He was a good boy- he'd come back when he was done.

Sulking his way through the Geofront, Shinji tried to stick to back passages and side routes as he looked for a good practice room. He had to keep his skills sharp, and he _knew_ , much like he _knew_ that he was miserable at fighting Angels, that his cello skills were one of the few things he could say he was good at.

Once he'd wormed his way into the depths of the Geofront, Shinji realized he was well and truly lost. Oh well- it wasn't as if Vessening or someone else wouldn't be able to find him in a pinch. At least he'd found a practice room, what looked like an old dojo. Shrugging, Shiji just set up the folding stool from where he'd strapped it to the top of his case and breathed in and out. It was time to set himself to the music.

The first sonorous notes out of his cello were long, rich and eightfold. It was actually the base line to _Patchabell's Cannon in D_ , but Shinji wasn't here to send himself to sleep. Right now, he was using it to tune. Once he got warmed up, he shook out his wrist and got to it. First off, go for the basics- _Tchavolisky's Symphony #6 in B minor, Opus 74_. Nice and slow, but not diving too low or high. It really did sound better with the winds section there, but oh well. Next, something harder- _Christmas Eve/ Sarajevo_. The Trans-Siberian Orchestra might not have been a classic composer par excellence, but in Shinji's humble opinion their re-writing of Carol of the Bells was well worth it. Draw back, dive down the neck as the pitch climbed, stretch the hand wide for the flying chords, saw the downbeat in one go, take the bow to its hilt… and fade off, to the next piece. Next up, something smoother; a section from Rhapsody in Blue by Gershwin. Almost throwing his bow against his arm, Shinji started plucking away, the first clarinet playing tag with the piano and him for the melody. He was the only one there, in that lonely dojo, just playing away. Bow, sfortzande, bow more, pluck, strum, sfortzande again, and back to bowing.

Time to calm down now, though. Something happy, a little bit more of that classic lift and less of the pitter-patter that made the song of New York so popular even after the tsunamis. A sister city to Venice indeed, now! _Swan Lake Overture_ would do nicely, and Shinji started the piece without blinking.

As he pulled and pushed on the cello, Shinji tried to let his mind wander. This wasn't hard music, nor was it complicated. It was just a warmup set, something to keep the long callouses on his hands and notched cuts in his fingers there. Still, looking out, he took in the warm paper walls of the dojo, along with the well-worn mats and the two glowing orbs in the shadows. He wasn't quite sure what most of it was for, but he could guess well enough. Still, enough was enough. Time for a challenge _. Le Sacre du Printeps_ \- the most difficult non-solo Shinji had ever worked to memorize. Born of a Russian ballet composer and given life rarely, it was a primal piece that chilled and shocked. Rite of Spring, no. Rather, a reminder of mortality as life awakens and captures the old inside it to make way for the new. A ballerina dancing to her death on stage, the beat growing fainter and fainter as she slows, dragging her feet, and stops. The theatre claps, and the company comes on stage, the musicians in the pit rising and falling. Shinji remembered that performance, the female lead carried off the stage by her partner because of her feet being blooded and legs frail.

The clapping though, wasn't just in his memory. It was here, now, coming from just below the glowing orbs that blinked and began to rise. No, not orbs- _eyes_.

"A very good performance, Ensign." The voice said, female. It had this soft lilt to the Japanese, clipping some of the consonants and stretching the vowels. "May I ask where you learned?"

"The… the Conservatory at Nagasaki, miss." Shinji replied, standing up and bowing quickly. "I'm- I'm sorry if you were using this dojo!"

The voice grew closer, the faint light Shinji had played in illuminating a tall woman with faint silver hair. A slight smile was on her features, and if it wasn't for the insignia on the right breast of her well-worn gi he'd have hardly known she was part of the owners of this building.

"Oh, I was just meditating." She said calmly, moving closer to Shinji. "It was nice to hear a young master play his part. Still, it is certainly a trip to get down here- would you like to come up with me?"

At this, Shinji almost panicked. If he said yes, if he said no, ergah!

Looking at Shinji, the woman just smiled and ruffled his hair. "I'll take that as a yes, little one. You can pack up while I get changed."

As Shinji flailed away packing, he tried to figure out who this woman _was_. It was confusing, and he had panicked like a child facing a bear! He might not have been the most stout-hearted person on base, but still-

"Ready?" she asked, and Shinji bolted to attention and nodded. He was very ready. Extra ready! Super ready!

How the _fuck_ did this woman get him like that?!

"Good!" she said, chuckling. Following her out, Shinji frantically tried to figure out where they were going. Either way, he was following her.

Bradford might not have been a big believer in fate, but he was a believer in letting his seniormost enlisted relaxing when they needed to. Oh, the Staff Sergeants and related could work just as long and hard as he could, but there were some soldiers on whom his august rank as second in command sat very lightly on. As two tech sergeants spewed coffee on monitors and a third passed out in his seat, he was suddenly reminded as to why he was a mere director, setting the stage for other players to advance and retract their pats.

Because _she_ had emerged. Mexico City, Brussels, Ho Chi Minh, Newfoundland, Linz, Barrow-on-Thames, Novgorod, Shanghai, Brussels IV, Little Rock, Rio de Janiero, Transvaal, the Siege of Nice… she was there. Every time, she was _there_. That voice, like a mother's lullaby; those hands, as if she was a surgeon; her mind, bending an Ethereal to her will and leaving it broken in the sands.

The Command Master Sergeant Valarie Melanseki, strongest remaining Psion, inheritor of the title of Grandmaster of the Psions, had come out once again.

Looking around his nice, sane-ish bridge, Bradford breathed in. Then he breathed out. Then he breathe in again.

"FFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU-"

Several dozen meters away, The Commander started out of bed and scrambled for his radio and plasma pistol before realizing that the scream was just Bradford's realization that several of the staff most likely to cause chaos hadn't been farmed out to Somewhere Right The Fuck Else. Trying to get back to sleep, he almost made it when he realized that given the duration it was probably the Grandmaster Psion.

The same person who had "accidentally" helped start a cult in his name by kicking in a psionic trinket she made that counted as an "Official Commanderly Artifact"

Rolling over, the Commander just grumbled and got ready to clean himself up and face the day. It couldn't be that bad, right?

In the apartment block where Misato stayed, the roar of Frustrated Senior Officer echoed, caught by the refidgerator and projected through every empty alcohol container in the house. Hissing as a line went skew, Lily just sighed and thought about what must be happening in the Geofront. That sound… definitely a Psion waking up. Looks like it was time to think about barring the door to the labs again.

Several thousand miles away in a Boeing Skylifter EVA transport, Kaji winced and rubbed his head as his headset went nuts with what could only be described as Mad Russian Cackling. It seemed something had amused the pilots, and they were Very Happy about what had happened. Shortly later, he heard them switch the channel over to what could only be described as All My Plans Are Explosively Foiled. He was very familiar with the sound, having made it himself after college and Misato a few times.

"Kaji, what on earth is that?" his charge asked over her radio link, sounding rather grumpy. He couldn't blame her- being hung up in a sea of LCL had to get just damn _old_ after a while.

"I think our flight crew our happy." He replied, streaching out on the small spare seat in the command center. "How you doing?"

"If I don't get an honor guard when we arrive, I may get tempted to see if I can land right on the Geofront. This stinks, its cold, and my hair is going to be ruined!"

Kaiji sighed. Same old Asuka.


	8. Guarded by Medusae, Opened by Angels

NERVous Breakdown 8: Tank Joke Here

Most days, things were fairly calm outside Tokyo-3.

Most days didn't have an EVA unit dropped from what was technically Low Earth Orbit into the outskirts of the city. Between the lithobraking, the giant hunks of transport case, and the giant war machine slamming into the ground at a few hundred miles an hour, the effect was akin to a small-ish earthquake.

"Three out of ten, would not ask to crater Battleship." Vaarie chuckled as the Geofront rattled quietly. The response from Bradford that could best be described as suffering noises, while Shinji just nodded and buttoned up his jacket. It was getting cold there, as the large Psion seemed to suck up all the heat and release it in what could only be described as Jolly Russian Laughter.

"EVA unit zero-two, this is Geofront TAGO; please establish coms link." The TAGO asked, a quiet sigh coming out his lips as he recognized all his happy order was about to take a flying leap out the window.

"Were est das?" was the blunt response. "Gott, mien Kopf tut weh."

At this, the TAGO just sighed, took off his headset, and gave Valerie a Meaningful Look. "Can you please ask Unit oh-duece to come to the recovery port, Grandmaster?"

Sauntering over, Valerie put on the headset and started talking.

And talking.

And talking.

At this point, Shinji quietly slipped away from the bridge, as it seemed the powerful woman he'd found completely by accident had found someone new to gossip with. Running through his options on places to go, he finally decided to just go home. It was late enough in the day already, and he hoped Lily would be out of the house, or failing that in her room ogling the EVA plans she had almost plastered his room with. There was something just… wrong… when a cute girl talked gleefully about ripping things down to the skeleton and replacing the piping and cables whole-cloth.

For Asuka, the day after landing was infuriating. First, her EVA needed to get documented. So, after spending the better part of twelve hours in LCL and a plugsuit yesterday and falling into the first available bed without blinking, she got to get suited back up, back into the tank of red goop, and walk her EVA around outside.

That was literally all she did for the first part- walk. Then, oh joy, she got to _run_. After that? Run _faster_. After two hours of walking and running, she got to pick up a Progressive Spear, and put her EVA through the combat paces. Ten minutes later, just as she was getting into it, she learned that yaaay… she had to pick up some sort of carbine. Asuka had been piloting an EVA for nearly ten years! She was the best pilot! Her Synch Scores were amazing!

"Jesus Christ Son of God," the TAGO said, looking at the sprayer of rounds. "She literally can't hit the broad side of a barn!"

Not _her_ fault she'd never trained with a ranged weapon in an EVA before…

"Well, make sure to lock her permissions right off the Minskovy Cannon, then." The Commander said, frowning. "Asuka, this is the Commander. I need you to do a running leap now, ok?"

As the Angry German noises died down, Asuka stepped back on to her heel, and rocketed forward. Three strides later, she leaped into the air, firing her roll jets to keep her stable- right up until a five hundred pound sandbag slammed into the side of her EVA at the speed of a lazy punt. Needless to say, the advanced, multi-million dollar robot went down like a sack of bricks.

"DER FUCK?" roared Asuka, handling the surprise with a few strokes of her progressive knife and standing up.

"Full unit reactions test plus system response. Looks like recovery training is next on the list of things we need to do. Also, TAGO, quit looking guilty and give TACO that thousand-yen note. Asuka, we're done with your portion of the exercises, so please go to the recovery ramp."

"Can you at least tell me what the bet was?" she grumped.

"TAGO bet that you'd know how to recover from a low-level impact with your lift thrusters and stick the landing. Landing on your side and scraping a new drainage ditch does not qualify, sadly."

Looking at the standard issue packet that Misato just gave him, Shinji had no reply.

"What do you mean, I'm going to high school?" Lily asked, her abundance of words covering Shinji's lack.

"Exactly what it says in the packet." Misato said, grinning and cracking another beer. "Seeing as you three don't exactly have what Bradford is willing to call a 'day job' or any major responsabilities, you're all going to be going to high school. Together."

"Hey!" Lily protested. "How am I supposed to redesign the LCL system on no-one thing if I have to go to school?"

"Wait, three of us?" Shinji asked.

One beer later, Misato grinned. "Shinji first- we're getting Asuka to bunk with us while she finishes up her quals and probably after. Lily, you got moved off LCL circulation and onto working with the Adaptive Polymer Suit team. Congratulations, you now have free time seeing as that little mess is locked up behind the team working on figuring out Advanced Polymer and LCL interaction. Next semester starts this coming Friday."

As Misato took another slug of her drink, the doorbell rang mournfully. Getting up to answer it, Shinji opened the door to look at Asuka looking like a drowned rat in a dripping fleece . Being smarter than the average bear, he promptly got out of the way and went to the kitchen, knowing that now was a really bad time to get in the way of someone who looked like she had a bone to pick.

" _Captain_ Katsuragi." Asuka hissed out, digging around under her jacket. "You _are_ my new barrack, as this form so elegantly puts it?"

"Ah-yep." Misato replied. "Make yourself at home."

Still venting pools of pure hate from under her hair, Asuka stomped off towards the shower. Moments later, the doorbell rang again. Getting up to see to the door, Shinji opened it and blinked. Standing there was a rather rakish young man holding a suitcase and a smile.

"Hey, this is Misato's house, right?" he asked, grinning. Shinji, at this point having run out of fool long ago, just nodded and stepped aside. As Kaji entered, he duffed his hat and winked at Shinji.

"Hoooooney, I'm hooooome~" Kaji called out, grinning like a fool. Judging by the crashing sounds of Misato flying out of her chair and diving towards the hallway, Shinji wisely got out of the way and towards his room.

SMACK!

Well, that sounded bad. Peaking back to make sure the stranger was okay, Shinji saw Misato necking with the poor guy hard enough to leave him back to the doorframe. Shrugging, the cellist just went back to his room and pulled out one of the books he'd been given as advisory reading- something called by an Englishman named Kipling, printed with the Japanese translations on one page and the original English on the other. Right now, he was in the middle of a poem- Tommy.

 _O it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, go away";_

 _But it's "Thank you, Mister Atkins", when the band begins to play,_

 _The band begins to play, my boys, the band begins to play,_

 _O it's "Thank you, Mister Atkins", when the band begins to play._

Drawing his lips tight, Shinji tried to make heads or tails of the morass of the foreign language and more unusual concepts. After finishing it, though, he was no closer to the end as when he started.

The next day was not exactly a good day. Asuka hadn't been able to bring much of her personal goods on the flight over, so naturally she was a bit short on clothes and personal hygine products. This only got worse when she learned that one, pay was at the end of the month; two, she couldn't get a line of credit from her bank back in Germany because she was a minor; and three, the Commissary Store would be happy to advance her three thousand yen on her paycheck, but they had a "limited" selection of hygiene products.

To be a little more precise, as Shinji found out the hard way when he got dragged along to help Asuka for 'reasons' they had a total of eight hygiene products.

"Why," Asuka asked the air angrily as she flicked her hair over her shoulder, "do they only have one kind of soap, and one kind of shampoo, and one kind of conditioner, and bottles of Dawn of all things? And these bottles- that's all they say. Soap. In five different languages."

Shinji shrugged, and shot a longing look over to the counter where a bored supply clerk was getting ready to assign passes. He needed one for the ranges so he could get his duty pistol sighted in, and more importantly get Asuka to do her pistol quals. If he could get her to get that done…

"Hey, Baka!" Asuka said, elbowing him. "We need to go get down to the EVA bay- I heard Captain Katsuragi say they're going to be finally upgrading yours up to spec!"

Ten minutes later in the robot shops, both teenagers had their jaws down as the heavy external rigging was added to the EVA-01. Massive plates of vahlnic alloy, giant rigs of batteries, and the holsters that held the massive weapons of war designed by the best in the business.

"That doesn't look right…" Asuka mumbled, in part awed and in part horrified by the heavy mass that was added to Shinji's EVA. "How can you move in that much gear?"

Shinji shrugged. "I don't think they want us to fight up close, so they're making sure we can fight at a distance. That's a lot of armor, though- what do they think we're going to get hit by?"

"Sandbags, apparently." Asuka huffed, remembering her own embarrassing introduction to The XCOM Way.

"What?" Shinji said, frowning.

"I had to do a bunch of 'calibration tests' and the hurled a sandbag at me." Asuka said, grumpy. "I landed on my feet, of course, but it was still aggravating."

"Oh." Shinji said, shrugging. "I had to do a lot of marksmanship evaluations, and some language stuff. Plus get uniforms and sign pay stubs."

Asuka's eye twitched. "We get paid? And free clothes?"

From behind the redhead, a voice pipped up. "Yep!"

Turning, both the pilots arrayed themselves against the new voice. Short and female, the owner grinned widely and stuck out one metal hand. "I'm Lance Corpral Juanita Perez, and Ensign Ikari, I have bad news. Captain Katsuragi wants you down in the test bay so you can do a few simulator runs. Ensign Soryu, as your new adjunctant, I'm obligated to remind you that you've still got to give your information to Payroll soon. If you'll follow me there?"

Face tight, Shinji leaned his head over at the new arrival. "Asuka, you're going to want to do that real fast, or they're going to saddle you with the nasty forms."

"What nasty forms?" Asuka scoffed. "I can handle a little paperwork!"

"It's not a longer form. It's a form that's on a Pantron, and they need you to use a Number Three pencil to fill it out. They only sell Number Three pencils at the commissary for cash-only, and you're broke right now. Remember?"

Asuka paled, and tried to recover. "Well then! Lead on, Lance Corporal!"

Sighing, Shinji headed out the other direction, hoping he could maybe get some specifics on the modifications made to his EVA.

When Friday rolled around, Shinji wasn't doing so hot. Between a nasty hacking cough from a Synch test and somehow getting a bubble of LCL stuck in his lung, to a semi-persistent headache from not getting enough sleep, he was definitely off his A-game. Next to him, Lilly wasn't doing much better between the starchy uniform and the fact he was relatively sure this was one of the first time she'd ever worn a dress. The only one of the trio that looked anything approaching "good" was Asuka, who had loudly sniffed that she'd be "making due" in this barbarian land.

"Just remember, Shinji, it's only four days to payday." Lily faux-whispered, grinning. "Then we can see if we can find a Black & Decker shop or something."

Shinji blanched, and strayed towards Asuka by accident- who was looking _very_ interested in the poor pilot.

"You know, I was regretfully informed that my pay would be delayed into next cycle." Asuka said, looking rather desolate. "But, if I could only go get some bare necessities, then I wouldn't need to fall asleep to the sonorous melodies of Wagner and Beethoven."

Considering that "Wagner" and "sonorous" were two words that needed a stiff break between them, Shinji was warming up to the thought of going shopping on Sunday. Asuka might have been able to drift off to the sounds of Germany's Greatest Operas without issue, but as a strings classicist Shinji's opinion on waiting for the fat lady to sing was cold at best.

"So, I'll take that as a shopping trip for Saturday, then?" Shinji chuckled, trying not to feel like rolled shit stuffed into a uniform jacket. Seeing as their school didn't have uniform overwear like a blazer or a jacket, Vessening had suggested just using their uniform jackets instead. Once the full sideboards had been assembled, Shinji was quietly surprised on how many patches he had. Three straps for his equipment, and one more for the Angel he'd helped kill. It wasn't much, but on Shinji's narrow chest it was enough. Across on his shoulder, he had a unit patch; 0-1 on the bottom, Evangilion on the top, and in center an image of his purple unit standing fast with a rifle raised and bayonet attached. Underneath, it had the Unit Motto; Stand And Deliver in both English and Kanji. Personally, Shinji wasn't too attached to the motto itself, but it was better than the one Rei's crew had been stuck with: Light The Way.

Arriving at the school, Shinji breathed in and out. This was ok. This was ok. This was-

"Well, of course I'll tell you about the jacket!" Asuka laughed, looking at the girl who'd asked her about the odd jacket. "I'm an EVA pilot, Asuka Langley Soryu, of the first Production EVA, unit oh-two!"

Sloooowly, the girls looked at Asuka's jacket. Then their eyes pivoted towards Shinji and his neigh-identical jacket. The eyes went back and noted the unit patch. Evangilion 0-2, Rise, Lion of the North versus Evangilion 0-1, Stand and Deliver.

"OHMYGODGIANTROBOTPILOTSQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"


	9. Iron Tombs Aflame

NERVous Breakdown 9: Polka polka polka!

The Commander had a lot of places where he could work. He could work in his personal quarters, he could work in his office, and he could usually try to do work in the Geofront.

When Bradford found The Commander in what looked like a disconnected industrial fridge full of computers and monitors and power strips, he had to hold his head in his hands. He'd done this before, back in the Long War, going 'off the grid' and camping out in some corner of the base to do things he probably should have delegated down to Someone Else. Walking in, Bradford sniffed quietly at the empty liter of Mountain Dew and just sighed.

"Hello?" he asked, trying to draw his boss' attention.

"Schiesse!" the Commander yelled, flying back in his discount rolley-chair. "Bradford, you nearly gave me a heart attack!"

Bradford shook his head and took a look at the computer screens. The computer screens looked back in their Yotsuba glory and image-filled cancer.

"Really, Commander?" he asked, looking at one mirrored monitor with an instance of Grokit, an advanced translation software running full blast on it. "Really?"

"Call it social networking and me playing a hunch." The Commander huffed, clicking away at a keyboard. "According to my inbrief, we declassified about one and a half years after the end of the Long War, shortly after the Antarctica Event. So, don't you think it's fishy that next to nobody knows about us? We only own _six_ giant underground facilities, the most advanced air to air combatants known to man, giant mechanized supersoldiers, and advances in physics that would make CERN piss themselves in joy."

"Slow dissemination of information?" Bradford asked, foiling off the Commander to keep him going.

"No way in hell. I looked through the MP reports- we've had multiple instances of guys going off the deep end of a bender in Alpha Site, and the closest bit of information I found was an article in a Los Alamos paper. Likewise, Delta Site- three guys go on a half-assed expedition into the mountains, wake up in Uruguay, and there's literally nothing except a few newspaper articles as they canoe their way home. So, I decided to run an experiment to kill time before the next Angel arrives."

"Okay…"

"It's fairly simple- I took the uniform restrictions off here at Foxtrot Site, and explicitly made sure our young Pilots never learned there had ever been any restrictions. Not hard, exactly, but worth it. You know what I'm seeing?"

"What?"

"Fucking _nothing_! Not a goddamn peep! We've had guys running laps in Warden Armor for chrissake, and the most I've gotten is some blather on a few discount image boards and pothole forums viewed by leftist sci-fi geeks! Conventional news? I've been running drone flights, and we have yet to pick up an honest-to-god local news truck in the city! It's the biggest gag order I've seen in YEARS! Not even the Ruskies pulled off something this big back in the Cold War days, and I should damn well know!"

Bradford hissed. The Commander had cut his teeth with the Afghanistan Mujahedeen as a 'technical advisor' sent from America back during the Soviet-Afghan war, and had another stint as an 'advisor' to pro-American forces in the Middle East during the First Gulf War. In terms of black ops, The Commander's file in America wasn't so much a tank of black ink in a censor facility as even knowing he _existed_ frequently warranted some very stiff questions and trips to the Air Force base in Greenland or Guantanamo Bay.

"Whatever is causing this," The Commander snarled, "is second only to EXALT in terms of potential damage. We need to find it, root it out, and _burn_ it before they try the same to us."

Several hundred meters away in Tokyo-3 Public School #2, Shinji was frantically trying to both take notes and respond to the chatroom firestorm that Asuka was feeding avidly. Between public messages that alternated between declerations of love, thanks, and praise, there was also a very brisk set of orders from said PR-firestorm generator dictating most of his responses. It sucked.

When the class finally got out for lunch, Shinji could barely feel his fingers from all the typing. Heading to the cafeteria, he went through with buying his lunch on autopilot, grabbing a little of everything. Miso soup, some okay-looking sushi, and an apple.

Sitting down, he quickly realized two things. One, Lilly was glued to his side. Two, most of the girls in his class were too. Sitting down, he slowly took a sip of his miso, before almost spitting it out. It was horrible! A closer look at the sushi revealed it didn't look near as good on second glance, and just smelled faintly… off.

"'ere." Lily deadpanned, handing him a couple of pieces of her bento. "I made home cooking today, so there's plenty of leftovers."

As the girls recoiled from Lily raising a flag on their Shinji, he accepted the offered food and ate it. It wasn't bad, per say, but it was odd. "What is this?" he asked, eating another piece.

"Oh, just a Guam Roll."

Eating another, Shinji shrugged. It wasn't bad, per say, but it was really odd. "So, what's in it?"

"Oh, the normal. Little bit of mustard and diluted radish, rice, seaweed, spam…"

Shinji's eyes bugged out at that. He'd heard Vessening wax eloquent about the horrors of Spam. And if it was from Guam…

 _"Well, Shinji,"_ the memory of Vessening began calmly. " _the trick to Spam is that there's several kinds of spam. The most dangerous and insidious type of spam, though is Guam Spam. Back in the Second World War, we had a backup plan to invade if the nukes didn't work, so we started stockpiling rations at key bases like Guam and Iwo Jima- Iwoto on your maps. The first things to get stockpiled, though, were rations. The entire military might of America set about to make sure there was enough food, and we crammed those islands to the brim with it. Now, since nobody really likes Iwo Jima, when we handed it back you guys just took all the food and distributed it and it got eaten up pretty fast because America tried to bomb you guys back into the Warring States period. But Guam? Well, when we pulled back to the bare bones, we left all that food there, and they had to eat it. The veggies and rice and potatoes, well that got eaten right quick. But the meat? That went slower." Now, in a conspirtical whisper, he added; "Some of the guys who were stationed there before they joined say the island still hasn't run out yet, sixty years later. They're still slowly working their way through it, one little Hormel-marked can at a time, hiding it new and different foods…"_

"ehehehehehe…" Shinji said as the rest of the girls started to sloooooowly move away.

"Fine, fine. Here- Hawaii orinogi."

Sniffing it, Shinji delicately picked it up and started eating. It wasn't bad, it just tasted a lot…like… pork…

"Does… does this have Spam in it too?"

"Yeah, why?"

"Do you have anything… without spam?"

"No."

Looking down at his increasingly less-edible bowl of miso and Mystery Sushi, Shinji gulped.

"No reason."

Grumbling quietly, Asuka tried to listen to the presenter in the depths of the Geofront. After talking it over with Perez, her 'adjunct' that was really equal parts minder and snafu prevention system, she learned that she'd have to take some supplementary classes on weapons and equipment, along with basic infantry marksmenship courses. After her disaster on the field with the carbine, she'd gotten a brief dressing-down from the TAGO to the tune of 'you're not just here to beat things with a progressive spear.' that still smarted.

Once she was done here, she'd be going to the personal ranges and get some learning on how to use regular guns. In the spirit of competition, there was a semi-formal ranking system that averaged together Synch Scores, average accuracy on stills and moving targets, melee efficiency, and tactical acumen which would be determined by seeing how fast they could counter angelic 'hat tricks' in the simulations, if there were any.

Right now, the scorebored was Shinji, Asuka, and Rei in that order. Shinji had turned out to be a remarkably good shot with the rail carbine, and his low synch scores were balanced out by the fact he was the best shot. Conversley, Rei was a low-end jack of all trades, while Asuka just needed to bring her aim up to and on the top of the pile.

Thus her rattling her teeth and bruising her shoulder behind the gauss rifle.

"Verdammt." She muttered, looking over the target. Her grouping was getting better, but she was still not good enough.

"You consider maybe asking for advice yet?" Perez asked, grinning from where she supervised the exercise.

"Nien."

"Well, I'll tell you now you might want to start by maybe dialing down your gun's accel strips. You're shooting at full throttle, which is awesome at turning cover into confetti, but most of the time we'd set them to sixty-ish percent for fighting most things. That's going to bring your kick down, plus it's also going to drop the round from hypersonic to supersonic."

Asuka blinked. "You can _do_ that?"

"Oh, my sweet summer child, let me give you the _real_ explanation on how this shit works…"

Looking into his Entry Plug, Shinji breathed in and out. It was just a simulation run. It was just a simulation run.

"All pilots, prepare for sim." The announcing voice called out "All pilots, enter plugs."

Taking a deep breath, Shinji hopped in, and slammed the hatch shut behind him. Time to be brave, let others fear. As he got saddled up in the command couch, the LCL started pouring in, the blood-like fluid pooling and dripping. Clipping in his crash harness, he felt the cool webbing keep him from floating in the watery redness. Taking a last deep breath, he ducked his head under the layer and pushed it out, just like when he'd been a trumpeter for a day. Now, breathe _in_!

"All Pilots, sound off."

"Unit Zero-Zero, Ayanami. Light The Way."

"Unit Zero-One, Ikari, Stand And Deliver."

"Unit Zero-Two, Soryu, Lion From The North!"

Okay, sound-off done. Now, the false-feed sensor training data would be pouring in, coming to light up his HUD, there!

"All Pilots, scramble for launch, all pilots, scramble for launch." The digitalized announcer said, its recording for the training run let them know how this was going to play out. Shinji didn't expect them to start underground, but he could handle it. As the lift cradle slammed his feet into the floor, he watched the ground rocket past his face as he got to the surface.

At that point his jaw dropped.

"All pilots, engage at your discretion." The same voice said, and just like that the Sim-Angel engaged. With a sword of fire and a whip-like tail, giant wings of embers on its back, it tickled the back of his memory faintly.

"Is that a Balrog?" Asuka asked, incredulous. "Please tell me we're not about to fight a Balrog. C'mon. You're kidding me."

A loud roar was the answer, as the Balrog roared again and started slowly tromping towards the trio.

"For fuck's sake, I got this." Asuka said, unlimbering her Progressive Spear and counter charging.

As she approached, the Balrog seemed to smile, and whipped out with it's tail. Blocking adroitly, Asuka countered, but the flame sword parried it in turn. Stabs and slashes met parries and riptoses, the massive monster a surprisingly dexterous fencer.

"So, er, Rei," Shinji asked, unlimbering his carbine. "Got any ideas on how to handle this?"

"No."

Shaking his head, Shinji just slowly started moving to the right of the running battle, carefully making his way through the buildings and trading off his umbilical on a regular basis. Once he got into what he considered a good position, he knelt down, braced his carbine, and pulled up the Targeting Program. A little bit of script-kiddy work, it was originally designed for the Minskovy Cannon but had been easily re-tooled for the rail carbines.

So, when Shinji pulled the trigger, one round flew out, and slammed into the Balrog's torso right into the armpit. This then led it to howl in pain and loose it's rhythm, letting Asuka server its tail. Between the follow-up round from Shinji and Asuka's Progressive Spear, it was very much dead. As their HUDs cleared out from the simulated battle, they all relaxed. They won.

"Alright," The Commander said, deigning to appear in person for this test, "Time to hotwash this Charlie-Foxtrot and see just how many more simulations we're running tonight. Because I guarantee you, if I do not see some noticeable improvement then life's going to get _interesting_."

"What's to debrief? I killed the thing!" Asuka complained.

The Commander sighed. "One, Shinji actually got the core breaching hit. Two, the fact you don't see a reason to debrief is why we're doing this. Three, I want you all to describe this little encounter- _Rei first_."

Rei began, monotone. "As per the designed paramaters, I exited the EVA elevator and waited for orders from The Geofront on engagement."

"You had orders, Rei. 'All pilots, engage at your discression.' You did not engage. Can you see the problem here?"

"Yes. I did not engage because I did not see an engagement profile that would not cause issues with EVA 0-2's engagement of the Angel. My marksmanship is too poor to provide direct fire support without undue risk of friendly fire, and my melee combat skills are not effective in group combat."

Some muttering was heard, before the Commander got back on the mike. "Okay, Shinji. Your turn."

Shinji gulped, and thought his answer through. "Well, when I saw Asuka get in that spear fight, I got kinda nervous- that whip tail looked nasty. I didn't want to get in her way either, but I couldn't just stand there. Instead, I wheeled right around the combat, and tried to get a flank shot. Once I thought I could hit, I got in a good stance and shot… three times? I think I did three shots. Then things ended."

The Commander murmured to himself, and made a smile-like sound. "Good job, Shinji. You saw the situation, drew a conclusion, and made a logical and smart decision based on the information you had. Right now, killing the angel in the sims is ancillary to getting you thinking the right way about fighting. Killing the Angel comes in later. Asuka, your turn."

"Well," Asuka said, nose high in her Entry Plug, "I knew that as a cheap Tolkien knockoff the Balrog was stupidly tough, so I just needed to engage him with my best weapon for handling armor!"

"Asuka… your Progressive Spear has seventy-five centimeters of penetration on anything, because that's how long the blade is. On unangled homogenous steel at full power, your Rail Carbine has seventy-five _decimeters_ of penetration. Your Progressive Spear is a _backup weapon_. It gets used after you try and engage at range. Did you consider drawing your pistol and spraying away with that as you advanced?"

"No, that would just eat up a hand-"

"WRONG ANSWER. We like to engage at range because when the enemy is far away, we can shoot him and he can't shoot back! This Angel had no ranged attacks- none! Zero! You could have all drawn carbines and buried him in lead, and if you did we'd be done! Nope, we must wait for orders! We must engage in melee right off the bat! We can't talk to our team! Techs! Boot up another sim- we're gonna be here all night at this rate!"


	10. Ruined Stones and Boiling Blood

NERVous Breakdown 10: Deci

At school, Kensuke was the definition of a mild-mannered nerd. A little witty, he always tried to be soft-spoken, and as close to unnoticeable as possible.

At home, though, he was another person entirely. Gone was the mild-mannered nerd, and out came the borderline-obsessions. Forget his old business selling beauty shots; no, he'd moved on to much more bountiful pastures. The new army in town, XCOM, was an unknown to the world- and there were a lot of people willing to pay top dollar for the information on them. Pictures, film, anecdotes, hell even rough sketches, if he had data, there was at least one buyer, if not more. Between a account that was getting four-digit deposits on a regular basis plus a bi-monthly circular, money was a moot point now.

Of course, behind the trillion-yen paywall was the grand slam of information Kensuke was jealously guarding. The EVAs. A few stills taken from the Second Angel battle had given him a fairly good treasure trove of data, but the Touchdown he'd recorded happening in the mountains behind town was the real treasure trove. The existence of a second EVA, the weapons it carried, and most importantly the dependence on a good pilot were all factoids he was sitting on like a penguin's eggs.

Then Shinji showed up. With a genuine- a fucking genuine!- uniform, along with all the knowledge in his head. Soon, that trillion-Yen pile of data would be big enough to pretend Kensuke wasn't trying to rob some dumbass for all he was worth. The trick was going to be getting Shinji to talk to him.

At that point, the Fourth Angel arrived.

It was a bright Tuesday morning, and Shinji felt decent for once. A solid week of four-hour drills in the EVAs had been exhausting in so many ways, but he was feeling better for it. Push, push, push, that had been the adventure. Gunfighter Angels, Melee angels, Stealth Angels, Angel Swarms, he and Rei and Asuka had faced them and all and held their own. Each Angel had died, three a day, for seven days. Closing his eyes, he remembered the last one- the Warhawk Angel.

 _He was tired. They all were. This was the last night, so they were running late- at 2200 hours, they should already be home._

 _"Wonderkid, Baka, you ready?" Asuka said, a feral note in her voice. The last Angel, a Berserk Angel, had made the mistake of charging the formation of EVA's right out the gate and had been flanked by him and Rei as Asuka braced herself and stopped the charge dead._

 _"Ready as you are, Asuka." Shinji hissed, clenching his fists. "I'm glad the TAGO didn't chew you out for stopping the charge."_

 _"If I went for my gun, I'd be roadkill."_

 _"Not true, Asuka-san. Merely knocked aside and critically damaged." Rei mentioned, head on a swivel._

 _As the EVAs topped the digital shafts, three carbines came out. After the Gunfighter Angel that had ripped Asuka to pieces, she'd finally made the grudging acquiesce that suppressing fire was a good thing and she should kick in towards it. She'd at least managed to subdue the complaints about her melee specialty after a near defeat at the hands of a Tower Angel because she had wanted to show why she tended to closing the distance over blazing away from cover._

 _"Scopes cold" Rei said quietly. "No detection on EVA systems. Requesting datalink to Geofront."_

 _"Datalink is jammed." The cool, automated voice that handled automatic scenario announcements stated._

 _"Well, shit." Shinji said, scanning high. "We're fighting-"_

 _The thing most people didn't realize about supersonic things was that they were silent until they passed you, so when an explosive traveling at three times the speed of sound with the approximant power of twelve tons of TNT exploded in the center of the triangle group of EVAs, sending them all flying._

 _"Verdammt!" Asuka called out, trying to get to her feet and failing miserably. "My leg, es ist kaput! Scheisse!"_

 _Meanwhile, Shinji had landed better- and more importantly, had found a radar track. "Asuka- found the Angel! Thrity thousand feet and climbing, bearing one-three-nine on a straight! Paste it!"_

 _Rei's position during all this was to break over and spread out. The Artillery Angel had taught them that clumping up was a very easy way to loose sensors, and the denial of datalink from the Geofront meant they needed all eyes on the Angel. Taking the track from Shinji's radar directly, she loaded it into her own FCC. Rei knew, at some level, she couldn't match Shinji's incredible marksmanship, so she had put together something else to compensate. Specifically, the fire control computer programing taken from a tank, plus a system to translate it into movement of the EVA. It was a little rough around the edges, but it did work and more importantly let her get a track on the Angel and start firing._

 _"Shinji-baka!" Asuka called out from where she lay, wincing in her Entry Plug. "Get me your gun- there's a weapons building nearby, and you can re-arm from there!"_

 _"Rodger!" Shinji yelled, jogging over and dropping his Rail Carbine at her side before helping to roll her over on to her back._

 _"Move!" Rei called, still burning through magazines. "It's coming around!"_

 _Running, Shinji tried to separate himself from Asuka, but the Angel was already in route. Thwaps and hisses went past as the strafing run tried its damndest to knock wither of the EVAs out._

 _"Surprise, bitch." Asuna grumbled, opening up with both Rail Carbines on the Angel. Most of the shots missed by a mile, but on a target that sacrificed AT field protection for permanent supersonic speed and absolutely devastating weapons a few rounds plus the destabilizing effect of three EVA fields was just enough to send it out of control for a second._

 _Exactly enough time for Rei to have finished reloading after her turn as flak, and coat it in more rounds. A slight loss of control became a major loss of control, which lead to the Warhawk Angel slicing itself into the ground. As it dug a crater in the landscape, Shinji got to the armory building and withdrew a four-pack missile launcher. Riffling one off in the general direction of the downed Angel, he then checked on his Progressive Knife and started advancing._

 _"Hope it's dead…" Shinji murmured, before seeing a little red square pop up in his vision that said "Comms Lost"_

 _He would have expressed surprise, if an Angelic energy beam didn't launch itself at him and knock him flying. Still, though, he'd been learning. Rippling off the remaining three in the pack, he drew his Plasma Pistol in his off hand and started blindly spraying fire in the hole. When the Angel rushed out, though, he frantically dodged and started screaming._

 _"Rei! Asuka! You hear me?" he called, parrying another blow by the Angel, watching it recover. "Help!"_

 _The answering response was another long roar of carbine-fire as Asuka had dragged herself into position, and when it ended Shinji lunged for the Core. Clipping it, he felt a massive blow to his back as he tripped from overextending, going down like a sack of bricks. At this point, though, Rei had finally moved close enough so that she and Asuka could take turns hosing the Angel while Shinji got back up and readied himself for another go. Slamming the Angel's AT field, he watched carefully, and once the first slugs got through Shinji charged again, this time felling the angel with a good stab._

 _"Simulation Complete." The voice said, and all three slumped down. They had won._

"Hey, Baka, you awake?" Asuka asked, dragging him forcibly back to reality. "C'mon, you made lunch today!"

"Eh?" was Shinji's response, which lasted right up until Asuka grabbed his jacket.

"You. Made. Lunch. RIGHT?" she 'asked', growling. "I am _not_ having another spam sandwich or Spratly Roll, right?"

Shinji hissed, and nodded energetically. "Yeah, yeah! I made lunch!"

"Good." Asuka said, sighing. Privately, Shinji agreed with her. Lily's love affair with tinned meat wasn't exactly healthy, and there was only so many times he could agree to eating pork.

WOOP WOOP WOOP WOOP BAAAAAAAAAAAAA! WOOP WOOP WOOP WOOP BAAAAAAAAAAAA! WOOP WOOP WOOP WOOP BAAAAAAAAAAAA!

"Oh, shit." Asuka and Shinji said at the same time. Four whoops, one baaaah. The Angel Alarm. They had to scramble- NOW.

"Which way?" Asuka called as Shinji started running for the inside of the school. She'd been briefed, but Shinji had been drilled- and as the last week proved, an ounce of drill was worth a pound of briefs. He was running to the basement, where the transfer tunnel was. One keycard flick later, the two were running towards a clandestine train station. Getting in, Shinji slammed on the activation button and the car shot off for the Geofront.

Inside the command center, it was barely-controlled chaos as the TAGO and TACO bodily threw their chairwarmers out of the hotseats and started warming up the airwaves. As the backup bridge bunnies scrambled out, dozens of coordinators got into their own chairs and started warming up the massive arrays of sensors that permiated the city and the mountains around it.

"Array One reporting in, they're losing towers!"

"Sector Three has opened fire, this Angel's got a bigass gun!"

"Sector Two reporting in, Particle Cannons are having no effect!"

"Array One has lost contact!"

"Array Two is under fire!"

Through the chaos and maelstrom, the Commander entered, flanked by both Vahlen and Shen. Behind them stood the Old Crew- experts on the tactics and equipment that had defined the Long War, soldiers and analysts who had done their bloody dance before. Near two hundred people filled the remodeled Command Deck of the Geofront, each one ready to set in motion the grand plan.

"Status on the EVAs?" The Commander asked, looking out over his domain, eyes dancing on the screens.

"Unit oh-one and oh-two are three minutes from launch, sir. The Pilot for oh-zero is currently unaccounted for, however."

The Commander grimaced. "Not unexpected. Are the Pilots in a position to be briefed?"

"Yes, sir."

"Very good. TAGO, those pilots need data on this. TACO, what's our status on getting some air support?"

The TACO grunted, and ran his fingers through his hair. "Not good. Ares Flight is still cold on the pads, and Paladin Flight is too. Estimated time of arrival is forty five minutes."

"Damn." The Commander muttered, frowning. "TAGO, how are the EVA teams going?"

"They're getting briefed right now. Preliminary guess is that this is either a Fortress-type or maybe Artillery-type Angel, things are fuzzy."

"Well, then." The Commander grumbled. "Sorte the EVAs."

In the railcar, a small light lit up in the nose. Both Shinji and Asuka stared at it, frowning. The battle was coming- both were showing their nerves quietly.

"Alright Pilots, listen up." The EVA bay commander said, his cigarette-stained voice tinting the compartment in a noir feel. "Information's come in from the Bridge, and it's looking dicey. Current analysis is that this thing's either a fortress-type or an artillery-type. Either way, it's going to be tough. Your current loadout is standard- prog knife, plasma pistol, and carbine, and you're not getting support from the ground net here."

As the briefing continued, the train passed the marker that meant entry into the Geofront. "Bad news time- this thing's tough. Current estimates show some serious angling on its primary armor, and we can't find the core. Good news, though- you're going in datalinks hot, rods cold, so what you see is gonna be a little of your eyes and a lot of what our towers see. Air support is going to be inbound from the get-go, currently twelve minutes to inbound Lance strikes. Questions?"

Asuka laughed, and grinned at Shinji disturbingly. "Nope! Me and Baka here have this one in the sack!"

Shinji nodded, stiffening back up. The simulators were one thing, this would be another. As the car rode on, though, a piece of music came through the speakers- almost an inspiration for the coming battle.

Blessed are the days when life is intent and clear

No falter or doubt, I know the way

They are the days I hope

I had never stepped on this road

The spark I once had seems to have died…

 _No_. he thought, quietly _. No. I fought once, and we won. I can fight again_.

What a relief it would be to end this all

How easy to fly the white flag and give up

But would I run today

Just to die another day

Give up now, and every fight has been in vain

 _No. I have a friend, now. She might not be nice, but she can fight. We can fight!_

Get up! You've made it this far

No loser you are!

One more time! One more try!

The pouring rain sticks my hair to my face...

 _Stand and Deliver_. Shinji thought, determination filling him from his jacket _. I am not alone! We will stand together!_

STAND UP AND FIGHT!

Stand up and look into the light

Pushing the clouds away

Stand up and fight!

Stand up and see the sky turn bright,

Fight for a better day!

 _Yes_. Shinji finished thinking. _I fight._


	11. Given Form Disgusting Barred From Return

NERVous Breakdown 11: In Deus Nomine

In the changing room, Shinji sighed quietly. Time to fight again.

 _Breathe in, snap the plugsuit tight, check the connections-_

This was the Third Angel, designated as a Fortress or Artillery-type. It would have a strong AT field, thick natural armor, and a heavy weapon.

 _-connections good, lock in emergency life support battery-_

Today, he would have Asuka at his side as she ran through the same steps in the girls' changing room. She was fast, with high synch and damn tough in a toe-to-toe fight.

 _-battery set, oxygenation coil and cell locked in-_

He was Shinji Ikari, the gunslinger of the team. He would advance with his normal kit, and would stand with another strong fighter. Together, they could overcome.

 _-oxy coil and all systems test green. Suit is on._

Time to get in the Entry Plug.

Next door in the girls' changing room, Asuka flew through donning her suit.

 _Probably not going to get a chance to cut in close… will need Shinji to cover for me._

She had never fought an Angel before, but be damned if she wouldn't give it her all. She had trained with NERV Germany, and again with XCOM in Japan.

 _Let's see him prove the first one wasn't a fake!_

Now, it was her time to shine. She could fight, fight! Oh, what a wonderful feeling! She could fight, now; destroy the Angels as she had learned for all her waking years!

 _Today is the day!_

At the launch ramps, the Catapult Chief breathed in and out. Two EVA launches on the standard ports. Simple, straightforward, and almost nothing could go wrong. Still, he knew well enough to check.

"EVA pilots, standby for launch."

"EVA oh-one, Shinji Ikari, Stand And Deliver. Ready!"

"EVA oh-two, Asuka Soryu, Lion From The North. Ready!"

"All EVAs, LAUNCH!"

[SPOILER] watch?v=oPHKn1JYHcA [/SPOILER]

 _Ride the rails, up to the top of the shaft,_ Shinji thought, _and get ready to fight_.

The lightning cracked up and down his body, the EVA- there was no difference now, as far as Shinji could tell. He felt the push of the catapult, the drag of his shoulder pylons, the snatch of gravity trying to rip his gun from his hands. Looking up, he saw the light at the end of the shaft, and breathed in. Out the hatch, gun up, and-

Light, heat, searing. He had to cry in pain, now, the force slamming him back, ripping him off the catapult, ramming him into the wall.

Stand, he thought despratly, pushing out his AT field to try and hold the ray of death off. Stand. Fight! Hold on-

As he blacked out and his AT field snapped, the Angel overhead made an almost satisfied sound, its ray retargeting onto the Geofront. Nearly falling down the shaft, Shinji felt nothing but pain.

"What the heck happened!" The Commander roared out, hands tight on his chair. "Sitrep!"

"Initial guess, the Angel figured out the launch ports for our EVAs and nailed Shinji's right in the fucking face." The TAGO bit out, growling. "Report's coming in now- looks like he threw up an AT field to try and tank the shot, which fucked up his cat rig, and when he lost the shield he fell to the bottom of the shaft. Medical's got him now- kid's practically parboiled."

"Air assets are inbound in six minutes." The TACO said quietly. "Loiter time on the Firestorms is eight hours if we park them in an auto-orbit over Nagasaki, and we can get them time-on-target in three minutes there."

"Park 'em." The Commander said, smoldering. "Shen, what's the best time to combat capability that EVA's got?"

"Three hours. We got a shipment of assorted bric-a-brac last week- we might be able to fashion some sort of shields for the things. Vahlen, analysis of that beam? Anything that's a no-go?"

Vahlen pursed her lips, and frowned. "I'll need my lab to tell, but that looked like a particle and radiation beam that was sub-Cherenkov by a thin margin. Think heat shield first, armor layer close second. It also looked pulsed- heavy impact load in the front blazing a channel, residual energy beam after. Soak the particle blast, and the thermal tracer should be easy to handle. I think."

The Commander still looked like a bulldog, working over the problem. Fiddling in a pocket, he pulled out a Cuban cigar and a battered old Zippo.

"Hop to, then. Estimated time to Geofront breach?"

The Geofront Chief replied back, voice thin. "Nine hours, sir."

"Good. Vahlen, Shen, those SHIV- ah, EVAs need ablative armor. Maybe some sort of shield, hell if I know. Just science it. TACO, planes, park 'em somewhere airbone. I'll take the mission effectiveness loss in exchange for a three-minute response time. TAGO, we need every beam emplacement ready to go. I don't know if it drops shields or something when it fires, but if it does then we need to blast it. Someone in Medical, get Ensign Ikari medical'd. Kid's a bit thin-skinned, so give him someone nice. Can someone round up a cabal of Psykers and get them to poke that fucking dee-eight, maybe try throwing some voodoo at the beam? We need options here, people- I'm not staying on the back foot here for long. We need to strike, hard."

Lighting the cigar, the Commander smiled. "Time to put our other foot forwards."

Down in Medical, Asuka grimaced as she rubbed her head. She'd gotten an AT field up between her and the incoming first shot, but the second one had detonated, somehow, giving her and her EVA a nasty bump. The concussion she took had nothing on her EVA, but her head still felt like shit.

"Alright, allons-y!" one of the doctors yelled, rushing a half-concious Shinji past on a trolley. Following in morbid curiosity, Asuka grimaced as she saw him get wheeled into an operating theater.

Why she stayed, she wouldn't know. What she learned, though, set the stage for a new round of nightmares. With deft strokes, the surgeons first popped off the chestpiece of the plugsuit, throwing the damaged item away into a corner to be picked up by an orderly. Next came the scissors, deftly taking the plugsuit off, one strip at a time. Shinji wasn't normally pale- always a few shades darker than Asuka herself. Now, though, he was red- an angry shade, blisters and pustules beginning to form. Soon rendered nude on the gurney, his operation continued at a brisk pace, the doctors slathering a heavy white cream on shiny bandages, covering his extremities with brutal efficiency. As tape secured the outriggers, his head was quickly shaved, Asuka wincing in sympathy. The wince turned into a full-blown shudder though, as she quickly realized- that could have been her.

Still working with him, one, two, and then three needles went into Shinji's arm. Muttering words like "potassium iodine" and "saline drip" the swarm of scrubs treated Shinji for his wounds internal and external.

"Ensign?" a deep voice behind her said, and Asuka turned. In a light doctor's coat, a rather large, smiling black man behind her continued speaking. "Dr. Sweet. I'm afraid we need to do some preliminary decontamination on you before we can let you back into the EVA."

Grabbing her mane possessively, Asuka growled. "As long as you don't mess with my hair."

Dr. Sweet laughed. "Saw Shinji, didn't ya? Don't worry, he was losing his one way or another, so you'll be fine."

Asuka just blanched and let the loud doctor lead her away.

Eyes bleary, Shinji tried to drag himself out of bed. Waking up feeling like he got the stuffing beat out of him wasn't fun the first time he fought an Angel, and it wasn't any better the second.

"So, how'd it go?" he mumbled, trying to move his arms.

"We fucked up." Was the blunt response from the chair next to his bed.

"What?"

"We fucked up." The voice repeated, dark. "You got knocked out, and Asuka got beaten up."

Struggling to sit up, Shinji tried to focus on the source of the voice. It finally shone clear, proving to be Misato.

"Wait… we lost?" Shinji said, groping at his nightstand.

"First round, yeah." Vessening said as he walked into the room, fresh plugsuit in hand. "Damn double pyramid has a hell of a punch and managed to get you right as you came out of the shaft. We fixed you up fairly well, though those burns miiiight scar a little."

"Burns? Scars?" Shinji asked, throwing off his sheet and gasping. Where before smooth skin had covered his body, now he was a marbled mess with some spots shiny and others freckled. His arms and legs were the worst, almost looking like a chameleon mixed with a mirage.

"Yeah, that." Vessening said, chucking him the new plugsuit. "Major second degree burns on the extremities, slightly less major second degree burns everywhere else. Bad news is you look like shit. Good news, though- if you beat this fucker, we can get you in a tank for a bioelectric skin upgrade and smooth out most of your new camo pattern."

Trying not to hyperventilate, Shinji nodded.

"The Commander might have been nice the last time you go the 'get in the robot' speech, but I don't have the time." Vessening said, face tight. "We've got two hours to sorte the EVAs and kill that fucker outside, or that puppy breaches the Geofront. Asuka's in better shape- she's been running diagnostics for a couple of hours. Either way, we need you two ready to roll- _now_."

Shinji sat up, and started putting on the plugsuit. "I get it."

"Good. You're gonna get launched a good ways away, you with the Minskovy Cannon. The idea is, you suppress it at range, while Asuka has her spear and a Tachibana Lance- a one-shot fusion lance we cooked up a long time ago. You draw fire into a fuckhuge shield with active cooling and shit, she'd gonna wait till she sees the AT field go down and then hit it with the Duke Nuke'm Stick and stab it till it dies."

"Okay."

On the EVA catapults, everything was quiet. The launch went off without a hitch, putting Shinji into the foothills behind the city. Umbillical trailing, he moved up to the sniper's perch they had selected. Laying his shield and propping it, dozens of XCOM soldiers hooked up the massive water system to cool the equipment, as well as the liquid nitrogen cells on the outside designed to hide the EVA when they burst.

"EVA oh-one, ready." He said, settling down the mighty Minvosky Cannon. "Any last words of advice?"

"Yep." The TAGO replied, going over the same old song and dance. "Eight second refresh time on the gun, so once you start just keep the trigger down. We're gonna take some collateral damage if you miss, but that's not an issue. EVA oh-two is ready to go on your mark, okay?"

"Okay." Shinji replied.

A minute passed, and then another as a massive power network started setting up shunts to fuel the mighty Minvosky Cannon.

"Power network ready. Fire as you bear." The TAGO said. "Air support is vectored inbound."

Shinji nodded, feeling his neck compress and stretch from his new scars. "Firing."

As the Minvosky Cannon roared out, a blue beam leapt forth at the Angel. The strike was a clean one, but the AT field soaked it up. Now, the drill stopped, and the deadly octahedron brought its own gun to bear. Another shot lanced out, hammering into the shield. A third, the air rent at its presence.

Then the Angel returned fire. The strike nailed the heat shield dead on, leaving the EVA in a heavy smoke cloud and huddling behind the massive defensive piece. Cowering, Shinji took a second to breath in, and out. In, and out.

Then he shot back, his shot meeting a second from the Angel and both warping. The Minvosky Cannon fired a beam of highly charged particles faster than the speed of light in atmosphere. The Angel fired a packet of slightly slower particles, followed by a mess of radiation. Both weapons used a lot of electromagnetic fields to keep their respective death-rays in line.

So when said death ray beams passed each other and one swerved into space and the other dug into the lake, even Vahlen was mildly surprised.

The answer as to why was simple, mind- the conflicting EM fields both added a bit of spin to the equation, but the results were catastrophic. Now with the firing lane to the Angel totally obscured, Shinji was forced to rely on the sensor net to sight in his shots. The Angel, meanwhile, had even more material interference between himself and his target. So much so that he didn't notice the other EVA that had sorte'd and was moving closer, bringing her Tachibana Lance around into the classic firing stance popularized by little green army soldiers with Bob's Bazooka.

As the wrath of a sun poured out, one could only assume by the sudden list developed by the Angel was that it's thought process included the word Ow.

"Direct hit!" Asuka cried out, drawing her Progressive Spear and starting to close. "Right in the flank!"

Unfortunatly, her celebration was cut off by an abrupt burst of incoming fire. Catching it on her shield, Asuka swore and tried to hold some of it off with an AT field. Fortunatly for her, Shinji was still spraying away, hammering the Angel with chot after shot tearing away chunks of the crystal armor. Not being a dummy, the Angel resumed plinking back at Shinji and his now thoroughly-destroyed hill and third heat shield.

Of course, this in turn meant Asuka could close in more, and stab her Progressive Spear into the weak point she'd made in a lower face, penetrating the armor. Reaching in, she began to rip and tear herself a hole.

"C'mere, little buddy." The Angel-blood soaked Evangilion Pilot said, popping off her shield and drawing her Progressive Knife to worm her way in. "You're huge! That means you've got huge guts!"

In the Command Center, several cups of coffee were spewed. Meanwhile, Shinji took a moment to take himself out of his firing trance to notice that most of the right side of his EVA- the side that had been getting wailed on more by the incoming Angel-fire. None of the shots had been a direct hit (thank you beam interference!) but the close misses had sent shrapnel everywhere.

"Ow." He muttered, before thinking loudly about passing out. "Why am I conscious?"

In the Command Center, TAGO looked over to the Commander. "Do I tell him?"

"Sure."

"Command to Shinji, come in Shinji."

Shinji was not all there, but he did realize that someone was talking to him. "Hi Command. I'm here-ish."

"Listen, don't try to move around too much, ok? We put a pain pump in your plugsuit in case your burns got aggravated in the piloting, and when the sympathetic pain came back from the… ah, grievous damage… it kicked in. Also, please take your hand off the cannon."

"Ok, boss. Is it bad that I can't feel my feet?"

TAGO looked at the Commander. The Commander looked at Sweet. Sweet looked at the TAGO.

"Yeah, that's kind of a bad sign. Listen, just hold still, and when-"

"SAY HELLO TO MY LITTLE FRIEND!"

As the Angel started to spit fire and shudder, TAGO just groaned quietly.

"-okay, when Asuka climbs out of the Angel she just killed, we'll get recovery teams over to you."

"I'm gonna take a nap now."

As the TAGO made suffering noises, the Commander panned over to Asuka flipping the fallen Angel over bodily and waving her arms to signal a Fusion Lance strike while she ran. Rocking back and forth on a sputtering AT field, the Angel looked nothing more than a die that had rolled one than anything else until a Firestorm pumped the fatal burst down its throat to make it explode.

"This is Paladin two-two, confirmed core detonation. I repeat, confirmed core detonation. Angel is DOWN!"


	12. Winged Ruin & Blood-Soaked Trees

NERVous Breakdown 12: Dozen Round

After an Angel attack, things in Tokyo-3 tried to go back to normal. People came out of the bunkers, construction workers got to constructing whatever got knocked down by Angelic or EVA based weapons, insurance payments were paid, Lloyd's of London coughed out another check to keep the harbor open, and school started back up.

Of course, the first day back to school from an Angel attack was always a bit odd. Desks knocked over, lockers jammed open or shut, cars overturned, teachers going "I CAN'T TAKE IT ANY MORE!" and other assorted problems. Even the famed Japanese Work Ethic was hard-pressed to handle a classroom growing a new skylight or size five hundred boot prints in the parking lot.

Still, when everything was all said and done, school was resumed. Pouring into the classroom were the usual suspects, plus a few straglers. Still, as things settled down, the Class Rep, Hikari, looked around confused. Aside from Rei being missing- not odd, she'd missed class after the last Angel attack- there was also an empty seatin the middle of class.

Oh. It's… Ikari's? she thought idly, noting Asuka was here at least. At least I don't need to restrain the guys from going after her today. She looks about ready for murder…

[SPOILER] watch?v=tkBXrenRhPQ [/SPOILER]

Just then, a thunking sound came down the hall, before the door quietly opened. Jaw falling, Hikari thought for a second it was a new student- but no, it was Shinji in what was left of his flesh. Speckled and blotched he stood, skin spattered as if by some caustic spray. His hair was gone, totally, without even eyebrows left. A pair of heavy blast-framed sunglasses sat on his face, while a wooden cane made the clacks as he slowly put his book bag down. His hands were covered by heavy gloves, while on his belt a heavy pouch stayed, stiff as a board. Sitting carefully, Hikari could _hear_ his hiss of pain as he settled into the chair, teeth gritted.

As the teacher entered, Shinji did not stand or bow. For the entire class period, his handwriting was stiff, dropping strokes and slowly creaking along. As the lunch break came, Hikari approached the desk with morbid curiosity. She could almost swear she saw his ear twitch as she approached.

"Hello, class rep." he said, quiet. His tone was neutral, as if he was hiding something. "I'm afraid I won't be going to the cafeteria for lunch today."

His gloves creaking slightly, he reached down into his bag and pulled out two bentos. "I made lunch for Asuka, but I think she forgot. Would you like some?"

Shaking her head, Hikari noticed something. What she had been assuming had been his clothes creaking hadn't been- jacket, gloves, shirt, all were cloth. What had made that noise had been _him_.

Turning pale, she tried to express a pleasantry, but the platitude fell short as she saw the shadow of Asuka in the doorway. For a second, a bare second, the flame-headed German looked less like a Valkyrie of myth and more like a caretaker, a sentinel standing tall.

Moments later, her look hardened into the bronze mask of anger that was so damned familiar, and she advanced towards her prey- the bento box. Swooping in, she grabbed it, grumbling about baka-Shinji all the while.

Staring, Hikari just tried to compute. Which was the real, and which was the fake Asuka? The grumbling Valkyrie, or the watching Sentinal?

Rei had been having a truly shitty series of bad days. First came the beginning of her medication adjustments, which had resulted in a severe case of nausea. This wasn't so bad, except it slowed her down and pushed her envelope. Next came the trip to school, wherein the bus that got her out of her section of town and to where she could walk to school promptly dropped its oil pan in the middle of the street.

The obligatory Angel attack had only made things worse. Rei was smart- she had to get to the Geofront, and that meant taking an underground train. Except the underground trains were shut down, and her ID card didn't manage to reactivate it.

So getting to the Geofront was out. Plan B, get to a shelter and use its terminal to call in and see what the home base could do. Only problem was, the shelter in that part of town had two main problems.

One, it was quite literally full of squatters.

Two, they'd scrapped the computer systems for cash.

Needless to say, things did not go well while Rei was forced to hide there. Between 'handling' the idiots who thought that a schoolgirl wouldn't know what getting groped would be liked, using the archaic rotary phone to talk to the Tokyo Metropolitan Switchboard and get her connected to Geofront, and performing first-aid on the idiot she'd hit a little too hard, not much of use got done. By the time she'd stopped getting connected to Indian telemarketing centers, the Angel attack had ended and she could leave the shelter and resume going to the Geofront.

The massive flowerpot that chose to fall on her head was just the icing on the cake.

The Commander had read some pretty damn weird After Action Reports. Rei's explanation for her absence might not have been "so we lit the fields of medical cannabis on fire to smoke out the Muton Berserkers and accidentally found the crashed Battleship" levels of What The Fuck, but it was certainly up there.

After writing out a short memo to the tune of "get a new apartment under the following criteria (see schedule A) and an Official XCOM Nokia Phone, postscript- Cap. Kitsuragi's building has openings" the Commander leaned back in his chair. As per the laws of conservation of chaos, the minute he fixed one thing something equally aggravating if not worse was sure to come up in three… two… one…

[SPOILER] watch?v=VdfnyC8ZMmU [/SPOILER]

BANG.

Whelp, there went the office door, and holy shit that was a lot of Frustrated Russian in the doorway.

"Yes, Grandmaster?" The Commander asked, opening up his Liquor Drawer and grabbing a bottle of good, medium-shelf vodka.

Huffing and puffing, the Grandmaster of Psionics slowly lowered herself into the guest chair in the office, her eyes still flecking purple and hair sparking with the corona that all psions had when they'd been using the Gift heavily.

"I am about ten minutes from going out and descreating the Angel carcass in the city." She said, growling. "That game of 'poke the bear' you had us do? I've got three of my Gifted down with mindburns and we nearly got fried by a particle ray blast."

"Mindburn?" the commander asked, pouring the drinks.

"You know how we can't hit someone with Neural Dampening with the voodoo?" Grandmaster asked, taking a solid swing of her drink. "Well, if we do it sorta feels like running your forehead into a hot stove. So, mindburn. Thing is, this Angel didn't have Neural Dampening- more like the theoretical Neural Hardening plus a Psionic Shield plus something else in there too to make sure it felt like we just soaked Mindfrays on top of the Mindburn. My attack team got skullfucked when they tried 'frays, and then my defense team nearly got killed when we got a return-to-sender care package."

At this point, the Commander drained his glass, and made sure to top them both up.

"So psionic assault is a dead end."

Grandmaster laughed darkly, and tossed back her vodka. "I don't know, we might be able to it if we were at, say, Saar or Passchendaele"

The Commander hissed now. He was not willing to trade a man's life for two inches of advance. "Anything else?"

"Yeah." The Grandmaster said, voice flat. "I want to test Ensign Ikari for the Gift."

At this the Commander balked. "You want to put a _kid_ , a kid we depend on as our front line of defense, through testing for the Gift? Care to give me a few reasons why?"

"One, the kid's got an iron will under that pile-o-trauma. Even doped up to the nines on codine and Combat Stimulants, he got in the mech and didn't start faffing about. Two, he actually managed to hit the Angel repeatedly under the same circumstances- which means either the kid should be able to hit a flying quarter with a gauss pistol at a hundred yards or he's got the mental fortitude to keep the shakes under control while firing the biggest gun in the world. Three, I've _seen_ the creepy shit that happens when they plug the kid in, and every one of my Adepts thinks those EVAs are the scariest thing since Freddy Krueger fucked a spider to make Chryssalids."

The Commander blinked, and downed another shot of vodka. "Let me get this straight- this creeps the _Adepts_ out? Those same Adepts who proved Gift-positive and didn't go half-mad staring into the Gollop Device to see Enernity?"

"Yep."

At this, The Commander took a slug from the bottle, and passed it over.

"Well." The Commander said, rolling his shoulders. "Well. You have my approval."

Grandmaster snored, her voice light. "Good, 'cause the next thing on my list is giving the redhead a Surprise Mindfray so she understands you don't fuck with my kids. Wonder how much she'll like seeing half-double for a few days."

The Commander groaned. "No 'fraying the guys, Valarie. It's bad for moral." As the psionic leader opened her mouth, he continued. "OR mind controlling her into the men's bathroom. No trickery. Instead, you need to use a more potent weapon.

At this, the Command Sergeant Major's eyes widened.

"You don't mean-" she stammered out.

"I do mean." He said, grinning savagely and putting the vodka away. "The most dreaded weapon."

"Sir, I am obliged to say this is a bad idea."

The Commander laughed. "And I can overrule that, Valarie. Say hello to the most dangerous weapon on base. _Paperwork_."

Somewhere way far away, Shinji was walking out of school, one slow step at a time. Step, step, clack; that's how it went. Just get to the house, and he could sit down. Step, step, clank.

"Hey, you!" a loud voice yelled. Stopping, Shinji turned to face the yelling person, a kid in a light tracksuit.

"Yes?" Shinji replied, leaning forward on his cane some.

"You're that EVA pilot, right?"

"Yes." Shinji said.

"You crashed, you dumbass! You crashed, and crushed my house! My sister can't walk now because of your shitty piloting!"

Shinji frowned, and discreetly slid one foot behind the other, turning neatly to the side. When the punch came in, he took it on the chest, and held firm. It was just a rabbit punch, not strong enough to really knock him back when he had a sure stance. The next one, to the gut, still hurt though.

"I'm sorry about your sister." Shinji said, pushing the words out through the pain.

"I'll make you sorry!" the kid yelled, going in for a haymaker. Shinji had toughened up over the last two weeks, to be true. More importantly, though, he'd learned a few simple tricks.

For example, take on step back, and whip the cane around into the side of this dumbass' head, sending him sprawling. It wasn't the clean beauty of a proper iado, but it was close enough for government work. Asuka, who had just turned around and was working up a proper frothing head of Get Off My Baka rage when she saw the blow connect. One instant, the Baka was going to get pasted. The next, he wasn't in the path of the punch, and black ebony flashed, and the jock was on the ground.

For a second she was impressed, if only at the fact that Shinji had stood his ground for once. This still expressed itself as righteous anger, though, as she bulled in towards him to bodily extract her wingman from the fracas before a teacher showed up. Taking his free arm up in hers, she snorted loudly.

"Baka! C'mon, we need to get home so you can rest and get better!"

Letting Asuka drag him away, Shinji just sighed and started going home.


	13. The Great Rain of Fire

NERVous Breakdown 14: Dulce Novia

[SPOILER] watch?v=Bp7fASCXk4I [/SPOILER]

In the world of XCOM, many specialized expressions came about over the years. A couple of better examples, such as "rookies first" had been misconstrued as praise by some of the newer members, while some classics like "Only Vahlen/Shen knows" were closer to an oath than mere banter.

Among all these varied expressions, though, there was one that crossed all languages and creeds, uttered by the faithful of every religion and fervent of any ethnicity.

"HIT THE DECK!" Shinji yelled, throwing up a Deflection Field behind him as he scrabbled through his coat to pull out his Training Pistol. Next to him, Rei and Asuka tried to kiss the floor plates as their brother in arms spun and started spewing paint. Behind him, the two Bluehats cursed, trying to find cover and getting nowhere as the .85 paint slugs slammed into them.

"PFC Lincoln and PFC Rajamandara, eliminated." A cool voice came over the speakers. "Current Red Force remaining in Sector A14, twenty six."

Huffing quietly, Asuka pried herself off the deck and went over to the downed PFCs. "Baka!" she yelled, kicking Lincoln in his training armor front. "Where was your cover? Bah- I don't want to know! Just give me your guns!"

Grumbling, the two privates handed over their rifles and ammo slings, the loads of CO2 cartridges and pods of paint. Taking one for herself, Asuka passed the other one to Rei as Shinji hunched over, clutching his stomach.

"Aw, does someone need a break?" Asuka asked, voice sickly sweet.

"No, just felt like I got kicked in the gut…" Shinji muttered, barely standing upright. "Gimme a minute."

"Pilot Ikari may need some time." Rei said, checking the drum holding her sim-weapon's paint. "Remember, these psionic powers are supposedly deliberating if used improperly according to the Command Master Sergeant."

"If he can't stand the heat, he should stay out of the kitchen." Asuka sniffed, nose high. "He's an Evangilion Pilot, that should be enough."

Interrupting them, Shinji pulled out the small tablet the three had been issued to keep in contact. "Listen, we still need to get to the labs and get the next objective."

"I still say we should be going for the EVA bays." Asuka muttered.

* * *

Up in the Reserve Command Center, Bradford grumbled to himself. "How the hell did those kids not fall for the trap yet?"

Next to him, Vessening grinned. "Because I told Pena to tell Asuka that we've been designing a new type of Entry Plug at the lab that raises the Sync Score of the pilot."

"Have we?" Bradford asked, frowning.

"Yes and no. The Entry Plug down there is the experimental Dual-Pilot System, which is projected to raise Synch Scores by fifteen percent."

Bradford just facepalmed.

"Listen sir, it's their first Base Assault training exercise. They're probably going to fuck it up sooner or later- we just felt it would be bad for Pilot Morale if they tripped on their shoelaces right out the gate."

Bradford just looked at Vessening. "And who is 'we' there, Lance Corporal?"

"We found a minder for Rei- Lance Corporal Spee. Which reminds me, there's gonna be some paperwork on your desk later to get Rei moved. Her current housing is, ah… inadequate."

Bradford winced. A Lance Corporal like Vessening had five grades of housing quality, "not bad" as the best and "inadequate" as the worst. When Pena had seen the remains of an old gulag when she had been deployed on a Scout-whacking mission in Russia, it had been described as "really fucking bad", a full step _over_ "inadequate".

"Oh."

"Quite, sir. Quite."

* * *

Down in the labs, Lily was humming as she worked on her latest project. Picking it up, she appreciatively swung her arm around before putting it down.

"ALRIGHT, EVERYBODY FREEZE!" an OPFOR soldier said, appearing on the catwalk. Lily's response was simple, elegant, and easily-deniable; a click of a remote, and suddenly three SHIVs with simulation Gatling guns came to life. Sighing, she put the experiment back on her desk and started futzing with the controls. At least she had the sim version ready for Asuka when the pilots finally arrived.

As the trio of pilots passed another opfor unit sulking back to the barracks dripping in paint, they started moving faster. Getting to the lab doors, Rei covered the back while Asuka led the way in, paint rifle up.

"WELCOME TO MY HUMBLE ABODE!" Lily laughed loudly as the Pilots stepped inside. "COME, SEE WHAT NEW MADNESS I HAVE UNLEASHED!"

"Is she always like this when someone comes in the labs?" Asuka asked, earning a shrug in response.

"Hey! Du da, ja, genau, die Berlinerin! Komm her - ich habe dir eine neue Wumme gebaut!" Lily yelled at Asuka, practically waving her arms. Looking across to Shinji, the only male pilot shrugged. "You too, scardey-cat! And you, silent pilot! C'mon!"

As the three trecked down the stairs into the laboratory-cum-manufactory, they noticed the paint-splotched walls, the practice markers and blurry silhouettes showing where fools had tread without permission. Going up, Lily tossed each of them a new paint-gun.

"Alright, Asuka, this is a basic shotgun with point-three-eight pellet paint. Past fifteen meters it won't trigger a kill, so going in with backup is advised. Rei, you've already got a rifle, so I cooked up something special for you." Lily smiled, pulling out a heavy gauntlet. "It's got a heavy paint spray in there, good to about eighteen meters. Anything caught in the cone is toasted, though. Shinji, you get this old Marksman's Rifle with a new hammer in it. Fires one-two-five paint, so if you guys see a MEC trying to make a mess, you shoot it."

"Got it." Shinji said, picking up the gun, taking a second to check out the can-sight. Asuka just tossed over the rifle, and smiled. Rei shrugged at her new Gauntlet, and got ready.

" _Now_ can we go to the EVA bays?" Asuka griped, getting ready to move. "We've got plenty of firepower, and I _dare_ those imbeciles to come at me!"

* * *

Upstairs, coordinating the 'defense' of the Geofront, the Commander smiled a thin smile. Everything was going just according to-

That was a rustle in the air ducts. Pulling out a paint grenade, The Commander stood up and moved next to the vent. As the wall rattled gently, he gave the side of the vent a soft kick that knocked it off. Pulling the grenade pin, he cooked it for a second and chucked it down the duct.

As the BLAM of paint staining the ducts echoed out, The Commander smiled at the glories of seven-second fuses that always ran seven seconds. "Amateurs." He snorted, before carefully replacing the grate. Yes, everything was still going all according to plan.

* * *

Running through the corners, Asuka had a wild grin on her face as she took advantage of her XCOM uniform's heavy pants to powerslide past a door and double-tap her scattergun through it. Rolling back up, she thumbed two more into the tube clip as Rei hosed her rifle through the door. Shinji, of all people, was the first through, tagging two blueshirts with a steady hand riding the bolt of his marksman's rifle. As the pack of pilots walked into the hanger proper, the lights suddenly cut out.

On the railing to their Evangilions, three people stood, white armor gleaming in what looked like stage spotlights. Helmets off, they were immediately recognizable- they were the Pilot's handlers: Vessening, Pena, and Spee. Worse, each one wore a black kneckerchief around their collar- the only uniform the enemy team had.

"Hello, Children." Vessening said, unlimbering the heavy machine gun from where he had been resting it on the shoulder of his power armor. "We've had our fun today, but I'm afraid that I can't let you get to the EVAs."

"And you're going to stop us?" Asuka challenged back, laughing.

"Well, as they say at Alpha Site Three, 'Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeere's Johny!" Vessening said laughing, shortly before opening up with his massive gun. Diving for cover, the Pilots frantically made sure they were loaded up before the other two tried going for their flanks.

As Shinji gulped and got ready to risk the absolute hail of paint Vessening was putting out, he saw something from the corner of his eye- Pena, cradling a shotgun with a killer smile.

"Aw, crap." Shinji muttered, before trying to wing the mechanical soldier. His shot missed miserably, but it was enough to get Pena to duck long enough for him to get ready to move. "Rei, cover me!"

At that exact moment, Asuka jumped out of cover, scattergun ready. Dashing up to the ground right under Vessening, she got ready to open up just after she saw the trip mine.

"Yippe-kay-aye, motherfucker!" Spee yelled as Asuka got knocked on her ass from the blast. Still, Rei threw some paint at him long enough for Shinji to break for better cover close enough to get a Deflection Field up.

"You know what we got here, Shinji?" Vessening yelled from the railings. "What we got here is failure to communicate!"

Shinji's return fire clipped the pauldron of the Lance Corporal's Titan armor ineffectively.

As Pena and Spee took turns pinning Rei, Shinji growled slightly and sited in on the bantering pair. "So, Spee, how you gonna get her out of there?"

"Well, Pena, I'm gonna make her an offer she can't ref-"

Shinji smiled as his shot caught Spee right in the gorget, cutting off his horrible movie quote mid-word. It seemed like all the Children's adjuncts shared a taste for the cinema, if the fact almost every word so far had been an action-movie one liner, famous quote, or-

FOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSH!

Peeking out of cover, Shinji smiled as he saw the paint-coated Pena fall on her ass. Seeing a paint round whistle past his nose, the young Pilot breathed in and out, and threw up his Distortion Field before stepping out of cover and firing his clip into Vessening as fast as he could. As the inbound rounds swerved, spun, and in one instance exploded as they came towards him, his own outbound only missed two of seven shots, the remaining five barely enough to get Vessening out of the fight. Panting, Shinji leaned against the pillar, his temples throbbing and gut wrenched by the effort of holding off dozens of shots.

Behind him, a set of armored footsteps clanked, and Shinji turned around, only to see Spee there, pistol in hand.

"Gonna have to aim better than that, Shinji." He whispered, his bruised neck turning purple at the line of the gorget.

Diving back, Shinji dropped his rifle and went for his pistol, arming it with a quick pull of the breech mechanism, dropping the entire nine-round clip into Spee's chestpiece. Growling, Shinji ran for where he'd last scene Rei, hoping to get her rifle. Seeing her on the ground with black marker paint covering her from a last-second grenade, Shinji hissed and yanked up the rifle.

"Too slow." Spee hissed, starting to unload. Ducking, Shinji felt a round crease his head just above his ear, the black paint dripping hot and wet onto his neck. Swearing, he came up, dumping rounds into Spee again, the black paint splashing as it covered his chest.

Returning fire, Spee trusted his armor to keep him safe, confident that the shot to the neck earlier was a coincidence. When Shinji managed to work his way around to where Pena had fallen, though, he got the minder's backup grenade and lobbed it. As it detonated, Spee slowly sat down, finally subdued. Panting, huffing, and hissing, Shinji started making his way up to the control booth, flopping into 'his' chair that would take him to his Entry Plug where a spare plugsuit was kept.

"Objective… completed…" he muttered, trying not to pass out.

* * *

[SPOILER] watch?v=ynEOo28lsbc [/SPOILER]

In an out of the way and very inconspicuous apartment under the Geofront, seven people sat around an old, scratched, green poker table with a game underway. Around the table were a number of drinks- Yeibisu, Johny Walker, Belvidere, Schnieder Wiess, Don Julio, and Hakutaka. The people there were barely highlighted by an old iridescent bulb in a hanging lamp, the noir atmosphere completed by several cigars and cigarettes in glass holders, with one pipe fulfilling a niche position. The pot was in the dozens of chips now, the smoke was thick, and the dealer was smiling.

No other atmosphere was really fit for Poker Night with the Commander.

"So, how do you guys think todays organized clusterfuck and paintball game went?" The Commander asked, watching the pot go up by chips and chaps as he ruffled the deck.

"Complete disaster." Shen grumbled, rubbing his arm.

"Glorious success." Vahlen smirked.

"Call." Voiced Misato.

"Didn't make the same stupid mistakes as last time." Valarie grinned, leaning back as she pulled her cards to her bosom.

"I still don't know how Shinji took out three people who've been literally doing this for years." Bradford grumped, taking a sip of his whisky.

"Kid's got talent, what can I say?" Valarie said, chuckling. "Got Captain Nervous here to flinch when we watched his testing."

Misato just slinked lower into her seat, and finished off her beer. Slinging the can into the recycle, a little robotic arm mounted to a miature SHIV track base held up another can of the drink to the thirsty gambler.

Laughing, Vahlen just took a pull from her own beer and patted Misato on the back. "Relax, Kitsuragi. Yeah, Valarie might get hammy every once in a while, but most of the Psionic stuff isn't as nasty as it looks."

"Sounded pretty nasty." Misato replied, frowning.

"That's just because we didn't have that control room properly shielded." Shen waved, shrugging. "Psionic shielding takes forever to grow, and we haven't finished shielding a quarter of the crap we need to in case of mass mind control. God, that quarter _sucked_."

Glaring at the table, the Commander watched Bradford rake in the pot. "Can we not talk about that? Please? Or do I need to start dealing Texas Hold 'em?"

As the veteran players at the table shut up, all downing their drinks. They remembered the last time Texas Hold 'em had come up, and it was _not_ a happy memory.

"Good." The Commander smirked, sipping his drink. "Anyway, actual business. I've got a field trip to take soon, and I need some poor sod to water the flowers and feed the Evangilions while I'm dicking around in America trying to pry another giant robot out of this Gendo Ikari scuzzball."

Valarie grinned, triumphant in her NCO powers to save her from this hideous assignment. Leaning back in her chair, she took a deep drink of her alcohol, smiling like a Cheshire cat.

"Valarie, you're coming with me to make sure they don't try and sell me an old Honda Civic dressed up in Power Armor. You've said before the EVAs have a 'smell' to them, so you're my bird dog."

As Valarie leaned too far back and fell on her ass, The Commander took a small sip and looked over the rest of the team.

"Vahlen, I'm sorry, but you're coming with us too. That scientist who was here previously? What was her name… ah, Kaga? I want to say Kaga."

Bradford snorted quietly. "Ritsuko Akagi was her name. Bachelors in Angel Voodoo otherwise known as metaphysical biology, doctorate in computer science. Currently she's in America at NERV-3, somewhere in Nevada."

"Thank you, Bradford." The Commander said, smiling. "Anyway, Vahlen, I need you to 'borrow' Doctor Akagi for us so we can get cracking on whipping out a few more EVAs and maybe see what's in the basement that's not on the floor plan or the MAGI networks."

Vahlen just groaned, and downed her beer. "Do I at least get a Skyranger to pull her out with?"

"Yep. You even get two flunkies to hold the Arc Throwers and look scary."

[SPOILER] watch?v=ZnHmskwqCCQ [/SPOILER]

Grinning, Shen flipped over his cards, prompting a round of moans as he raked in the pot. "Heh. Sucks to be you guys- I'm already booked up, so I can't keep an eye on the Geofront."

"Oh?" went Bradford. "So what's your dodge?"

"Psi datalink systems the guys in Europe came up with. I swear, ever since we incorporated the University of Linz into our research and development program, it's like having a supercomputer that doesn't gigo you if you drop a decimal. It's so helpful."

Bradford laughed. "Got one better- I'm headed to Bravo to check out a new batch of Rookie candidates who just passed Stage One training, plus organizing the purchase of a Skyranger two point oh."

"So, whose job is it to watch the base while you all are gone?" Misato asked, sipping her beer. Five eagle-eyed glances looking to dodge the job turned towards her, and she briefly felt like she was staring down the Hall of Infinite Brass.

"Misato, we'd like to thank you for volunteering" Bradford smirked.

"This is a tremendous opportunity for your career." Vahlen chuckled.

"We like to practice the fine art of chucking people in off the deep end" Shen sagely added.

"And now you know why I avoid the officer school like the plague." Quipped Valarie.

"Do I get any say in this?" Misato asked, downing another beer.

"Don't forget to turn the lights off by eleven, feed the Pilots dinner by six and the rest of the staff by seven, walk the Rookies, and water the scientists." The Commander said, chuckling. "I'm leaving you Hilltopper as a backup guy, and the base should run itself for the most part. Don't scratch the paint on the Skyranger, and don't feed the Psions after midnight. Other than that, it'll be a piece of cake!"

Deep in the bowels of the Barracks, Veesening cracked one eye open and smiled a happy, joyful, childish smile. It was time for the mice to play!


End file.
